The thing that stood out to me the most in Copenhagen is how the people locked their bikes up.
In Atlanta, and I’m pretty sure everywhere else in the world, you lock your bike to itself (through the frame and tire) and to something – a fence, pole, bike rack, etc. In Copenhagen, I noticed that no one locked their bikes to anything. Just themselves.
Even the bike racks weren’t made for locking bikes to. You roll your front tire in just far enough so that it will keep it standing upright. The rack is there for support not security.
If the plethora of bike racks are full (which did happen), they just locked the bike to itself and leaned it against a wall or something.
Now I can’t say I noticed any stolen bikes – those are difficult to point out. But out of the hundreds if not thousands of bikes that I saw locked up only to themselves, none of them were missing a tire (or a frame if they locked it to just the tire) – which is what usually happens to bikes in Atlanta that aren’t locked up well. Even though we have fewer bikes, at every corral station, I can almost guarantee you will see one bike with either the frame or tire stolen.
The Danish people are supposed to be the happiest in the world and I think it’s because they can trust each other. And also biking. Biking makes people happy.