This bicycle ride thing is rather foreign in Copenhagen. During the activism of the 1970′s and 1980′s there were massive rides by citizens demanding safe infrastructure but it’s been awhile.
I was looking forward to seeing how Copenhageners reacted to a large, slow-moving group of people on bicycles blocking the early evening traffic.
There were people who stopped to look at the spectacle, but most of them were on foot or leaning out of windows. They were smiling, as a rule.
If you looked at the traffic – bicycle and motorized – it was a different story. Many participants noticed how people were pissed off at having the streets blocked. Car horns honked and sour faces peered out from inside windscreens.
Even the two-wheeled traffic was annoyed at the hindrance. It got to a point that several of us rolled past warning them that it could take 10-15 minutes for the parade to pass. This information was usually greeted with a ‘tsk’ or a muttered swear word as they turned their bicycles around to look for alternative routes.
