Zen and the Art of Bicycle Riding

by Eliza Dumais

Cities have a particular character from the back of a bicycle. The version of Copenhagen I came to know was one that I was introduced to over handlebars — one that revealed itself to me gradually, over a string of morning commutes.

The city was one that favored the outdoors at all costs, even in the face of brutal Nordic cold, advertising stacks of fleece blankets in place of indoor seating in restaurants. It was one that took care to carve time for mid-day beers and evening espressos in little cafés, and one that provided just as many candy shops as supermarkets. It was beautiful in a premeditated way, with low-standing, sun-spotted buildings in honey colors and faded blues — with cobblestones and ubiquitous ropes of string lights, and an alarmingly attractive, homogenous population. But the sweet-toothed Copenhagen I knew best was the one I navigated via bike lanes.

In Denmark there is an unofficial code of conduct known as Janteloven — what can be understood in the simplest of terms as a principle of sameness. It calls for a social order whereby the collective holds greater esteem than the singular black-clad cyclist. In other words, no Dane is better than any other: remaining an indistinguishable part of the Danish public is the most satisfactory way to live your life in Scandinavia.

Fifty-two percent of Copenhagen’s residents commute each day via bicycle, and maybe that’s what I liked so much about it. I liked contributing to the black-clad sameness of the Danes — their peaceful anonymity. I liked that the bikers on either side of me could not tell, or so I hoped, that I was an imposter. I suppose I liked most of all that on the back of my bike I didn’t feel like an imposter. For however briefly I was riding, I was, in fact, one of them.

Janteloven, or the Law of Jante, was established by Askel Sandemose, a Dano-Norweigan writer, in 1933. It was comprised of a set of ten rules, a Scandinavian ten commandments, if you will, in praise of an egalitarian sameness. These rules, all along the lines of “you are not to think you’re smarter than we are” or “you’re not to think you know more than we do,” simply provide general instructions for learning to devalue individual success in the face of that of the collective. While that sounds vastly Dystopian (Huxleyan, even), it holds a much subtler presence in practice. It is seen in the somewhat uniform dress code of uninterrupted black or the prevalence of half-buns and leather backpacks (this black Danish holy rule has led me to tuck the more colorful articles of clothing I traveled with further and further into the back of my closet). There is a welfare state that ensures free healthcare and education to all Danish residents, and citizens always wait diligently on street corners for the walk signal. With a minimum wage of approximately 110 Danish Kroner, the equivalent of 21 U.S. dollars, and an impressive public transportation system, this whole concept of sameness, of obsessive equality, seems to allow the country to run like a trendy, socialist fairy tale. That is, perhaps, what makes it so easy to feel like an outsider. Copenhagen, in all of its beauty, manages to appear somewhat impenetrable — closed off and folded up in all of its collectivized perfection.

The Danes have been ranked the world’s happiest population in the U.N.’s happiness index each year without fail since 1973. Perhaps in their well-curated sameness they were all simply born that much happier than any other constituency, but more likely, there is a certain sense of ease to dismissing the anxiety that comes along with the necessity to stand out. Contrary to years of being taught that we live our lives in search of means of exhibiting individuality, perhaps there is something incredibly fulfilling about enjoying your cozy little slot of anonymity.

On the other hand, there is something unnerving there. It seems as if the almost naively perfect egalitarian principle can perpetuate such a high happiness index because there is no threat to the delicate, uniform balance — there is something unfair about a country that advertises profound tolerance and equal treatment when its population differentiates so little in terms of race, class, religion, even political opinion. It is much simpler to ease into anonymity if you already blend so naturally into your context.

The first time I rode my bike to class in the morning, there were several near-fatalities. I found, only moments into my commute, that I needed to cross the street — but I was in the epicenter of biker rush hour and could see absolutely no plausible way to extract myself from the mob of handsome, Danish men and Aryan women biking effortlessly in impressively high heels. If you have never been to Copenhagen, you must imagine that these are not simply bike lanes, but rather bike high ways full of traffic jams, sections for different speeds, passing and merging rules, and a relatively constant symphony of bicycle bells. To lose balance, for even a moment, could lead to a sufficiently disastrous mountain of injured bicyclists. But still, of course, the Danes are cooly jaded, and utterly without fear. Also, I am fairly certain that Danes do not sweat.

I found myself biking directly onto the sidewalk, void of another available means to excuse myself from the crowd of furiously forward-moving commuters. Narrowly avoiding several pedestrians, I swerved directly into the barriers surrounding the Nørreport metro station, dismounting my bike gracelessly as it clattered onto the sidewalk (taking several nearby parked bicycles with it). Naturally humiliated, I wrestled a couple of the bikes back into standing position and waited politely at the cross-walk to walk my bike across the street before anxiously re-mounting and riding the final three streets to my University.

I have now been biking the four miles to and from school each day for months, relatively free of the anxiety my commute initially inspired. Yesterday, finishing class at 2:00 with about two hours of chilly Scandinavian sunshine left in the day, I got on my bike. I started on Strøget, a cobblestone walking street lined with upscale galleries and candle shops, turning eventually onto Frederikssundsvej. I crossed the pedestrian-crowded bridge marking Nørrebro’s border and then passed the set of enormous glass food markets I cannot afford to wander into. I felt the cold subside, however briefly, as I focused on weaving my way through the slower moving cyclists, remembering to acknowledge the presence of the rare but extraordinary copper haze the afternoon sun had wrapped the city up inside.

I stayed on my bicycle until the sun was mostly gone, until I could no longer ride without the accompaniment of my bike lights. I headed back through Nørrebro, veering off onto Jaegersborggade, a narrow side street crammed with picnic tables, brunch restaurants and bars boasting locally brewed beer, each of which is topped with a narrow collection of walk-up apartments. I watched the way the colors in my new city blended into one another if I biked quickly enough — the way the blues and yellows knotted themselves together, offering an apology on the part of the sky for remaining so consistently, thanklessly gray. I watched the way the graffitied outer windows of the grungier Nørrebro bars gave way to the chalkboard signs and exposed brick of cafes, eventually merging into short, residential streets with well-lit kitchen windows in geometrically perfect frames. Much like its residents, this city has a way of being one with itself.

In Robert Pirsig’s novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he writes, “On a motorcycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.” Admittedly a motorcycle moves faster, more aggressively, than a bicycle — it adds a whole separate layer of danger, of rebellious risk. But there is something I like about the notion of a bicycle as a vehicle of presence. Despite its practical advantages as my primary means of transportation, it is where I feel the most at home in this city — the most a functioning piece of the principle of Janteloven. It is my unobstructed way to exist alongside the Danes, whether or not I truly belong in their cultural presence otherwise. Over handlebars, I can equalize the layout of the whole city, from the wealthier canal-side properties to the paint-peeling edges. It all slides together.

When Joan Didion moved to New York, she explained that she felt it, “was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion” but more importantly, “it never occurred to me that I was living a real life there”. Copenhagen, in all of its canal-laden, honey-plastered, clean and well-lit glory, is a beautiful little tale of egalitarian harmony, but it will never hold a real life for me either. Riding my bicycle reserves me an extended window of the honeymoon phase: it allows me to smooth over the City’s flaws, its disfigurements, as well as my own, in order to fit more perfectly into a culture that has founded itself on sameness. But I can never fit wholly — can never lose track of my “other-ness” when I’ve slowed down enough to see it all clearly. It is a city I have learned to love, but I have also learned that I can never call it my city.

That being said, there is still a certain brand of zen that accompanies the process of piecing together a collection of street signs and and front doors on the back of a bicycle — unobstructed and present in full. I came to know Copenhagen only when I found a way to match its motion — to view it as its residents do. Bicycling was how I introduced myself to its tangled little network of side streets and mail boxes, and also how I learned that we are simply not built for all of the places we would like to call our own.

My bike is a rental and I’ve got to return it soon anyways.