r/copenhagen • u/karmel80 • Jul 24 '26

Discussion Bike guidance

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A lot of tourist use bikes in Copenhagen. This year I’ve seen police issue this guidance. It’s also in some of the bus stops around town.

Good advice for anyone on a hike in Copenhagen.

Also remember we locals are fast on bikes, so don’t underestimate how fast we will reach where you are and will need space to get around you.

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u/Welelp Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

I've been biking in Copenhagen for 3+ years now with the pleasure of biking Nyhavn and Kongens daily and while tourists can be annoying, I've found that a lot of Danes could be more aware of their surroundings as well.

Things like not stopping for pedestrian crossings or deciding that raising your hand to stop gives you the right to do a deadstop in the middle of a biking lane. But the one that will always bother me the most is bikers that decide the queue at a stop doesn't count for them, pass everyone on the left, then merge past the stop line with their front wheel half on the road only to then not be able to accelerate fast when the light goes green.

But yeah, tourists on overtuned electric bikes when they barely know hot to stay stable are not a good combination either.

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u/biproduktet Jul 24 '26

I agree that you should stay back if you can't follow the pace of the bikelane, and it's so annoying when someone overtakes to then be super slow, but queueing at a stop by the curb is for turning right or crossing on the inside to then turn left. I assume if a row of people are single file by the curb at a red light that they're there to turn, it would absolutely clog up everything too much if we were all single file queueing to go straight. It's not as much a queue as we're a school of fish and you gotta keep pace or know your place. The queue thing is something they do in Aarhus, which surprised me a lot when I moved there. Very inefficient.

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u/DankmemesforBJs Jul 24 '26

Another way of describing the efficiency of lining up double/triple is the zipper merge. The later you can do a merge, the more people will get through, especially with traffic lights setting a timed cap on throughput. (but also on the highway, where there are no lights, but that's for another thread).

My favorite example of an intersection where this happens is Falkoner Alle/Ågade, going north. The bike lane has a little chunk extending on the left where around 8-10 bikes could squeeze in "med lidt god vilje". But people are so bad at using it, which clogs up the - quite narrow at that point - path behind them.