Copenhagen's piles of bicycles

In Copenhagen, the authorities occasionally clean up an area from abandoned bikes and then you will see literal piles of bikes. Don't have a bike? Take one from the pile without feeling guilty.

I've lived in both Copenhagen and Malmö (the location of the cycle parking in the last picture in the article). What's great about cycling in both places is that cycling is super prevalent so that infrastructure is much better (separate cycle paths, protected cycle lanes, public bike pumps) and drivers are generally more respectful (since they are usually also cyclists) even when you are sharing the road with cars without a bike lane.

An interesting difference from American cycling is the speed at which one should cycle in Sweden/Denmark is much slower. The reason for this is that cyclists are not generally in danger of being smooshed by lots of cars, so more people feel comfortable cycling, even those who are older or not as physically fit or not as suicidal. Cycling fast is a defense mechanism unnecessary in Sweden.

I wrote a bunch about cycle infrastructure on Metafilter:

http://www.metafilter.com/140136/Intersection-Protection#559...

With some links to some interesting design details:

https://www.google.se/maps/@55.58868,13.005717,3a,75y,218.76...

https://www.google.se/maps/@55.589265,13.005744,3a,75y,233.2...

https://www.google.se/maps/@55.600765,13.004514,3a,75y,194.7...

https://www.google.se/maps/@55.599945,13.005198,3a,75y,245.8...