The Metamorphosis
One of the parents spent a week in Berlin. And didnât turn into a beetle. But he did undergo a transformation.
One moment a nuisance on the kerb.
A cycling hooligan.
An obstacle at the traffic lights.
An element in the flow of urban traffic thatâs hard to get past â and, depending on your perspective, also a sort of unintended moral conscience on two wheels.
Thatâs what cycling in Berlin felt like.
Berlin, in a nutshell
In practical terms, this manifested itself in small, everyday scenes:
Motorists who, out of a mixture of habit and subtle schadenfreude, edge a little further into the cycle lane â just far enough that you canât get past.
The car in front making a sudden right turn, forcing you to brake abruptly and briefly wonder whether youâve just become part of a traffic experiment.
Cycle paths that are less paths and more topographical challenges: narrow, uneven, criss-crossed with roots â a bit like off-road sports, only without having to sign up.
You make progress.
But rarely smoothly.
And never quite as a matter of course.
And rarely with a sense of safety.
Certainly not with the feeling of being welcome as a road user on two wheels.
Copenhagen, then like this
And then: Copenhagen.
Suddenly, youâre no longer an exception.
No longer a second-class road user.
No longer a nuisance.
But simply: traffic.
The roads are wide.
The lanes are clear.
The expectations are obvious.
You ride. The others ride too.
You get overtaken. You overtake others yourself.
All in a rhythm that, after a surprisingly short time⌠feels normal.
Okay, weâve been there before. But now to the why.
Infrastructure as a mindset
What is changing here is not just the asphalt or concrete surface.
It is the mindset behind it.
Cycle paths are not whatâs left over once everything else has been planned.
They are taken into account right from the start. Everywhere. Even in the countryside. We were there too.
Often physically separated, slightly raised, clearly marked.
Not spectacular. But reliable.
And suddenly you realise:
When infrastructure works, you have to struggle less.
Respect â quiet, but effective
Perhaps the biggest difference is harder to pin down.
It is that quiet, natural respect in how people interact.
Not perfect. Not without conflict.
But palpable.
Cars wait.
Bikes fall into line.
Pedestrians move along clear paths.
Youâre not constantly on high alert.
And that changes more than you might think.
What the transformation really is
The real transformation isnât in how one behaves on a bike.
Rather, itâs the shift from being a tolerated road user to a natural one.
You no longer ride against the odds.
You simply ride. Wherever youâre going.
What else is worth seeing
If you want to get a better sense of this, there are a few things worth paying close attention to:
- A morning junction during rush hour â and how effortlessly hundreds of bikes weave in and out of one another
- The major cycle routes along which commuter flows move almost as if by themselves
- Bridges that demonstrate just how elegant infrastructure can be
- Traffic lights with dedicated phases for cyclists â including handrails to hold on to
- And last but not least: behaviour at bottlenecks, where it becomes clear whether a system really works
Is this always complicated? Absolutely not. Take, for example, the ramps between the pavement and the road. In Berlin, these are either non-existent or involve elaborate brick-built kerb ramps. In Copenhagen: always a small section of asphalt as a ramp. Not particularly attractive, but functional and cost-effective. An example that shows: it can be done.
So what now?
You find yourself driving differently in this setting. Yes, you really do change!
More calmly.
More with foresight.
More naturally.
And inevitably you ask yourself:
Was it really always just down to the others?
Or perhaps a little bit down to what was built around you?
No punchline.
Just a subtle shift. And a touch of self-criticism that it wasnât clear sooner. So much wasted blood pressure, back then.