We leave Aarhus in bicycle rush hour. For the most part we are going against the flow so things are not too bad but there are still a few folks rushing to work or school headed in our direction. It is a bit unnerving as the folks pass without any warning whatsoever. No bell, no ‘passing on the left’, no youhoo, no nothin’, just whoosh very close by.
Considering this is a society of bike riders there are few that I would call good riders. Their bikes are not set up properly, they don’t ride a particularly straight line and they do not spin. They push a very big gear, whiz by on the down hills turning over the pedals at about 30 rpm, the do OK on the flats but when they climb they slow to a crawl. I can catch and pass them on a hill and I have 4 loaded panniers. Still they are out there and I’m quite sure most of them do not own a car.
On the road from Aarhus to Horsens
We have, over the last couple of weeks, stopped at variety of different lunch spots. A church/grave yard, a gravel entrance way to a farm, a highway rest stop complete with a picnic table and a flush WC, a random bench in a town adjacent to the highway, today we manage to find a particularly pleasant setting in a park that actually had a picnic bench. We mostly stop because we are hungry and it makes little difference where, we do try to find nice places but even the side of a gravel road is interesting.
There are more smokers and vapers here than in Canada. I have decided it is all about the image. Watching people at some sheesha pipes yesterday and puffing on vaporizers or cigarettes as we travel about I notice most of them don’t inhale, maybe it is by choice but I think it is the perception it is cool to puff that drives their indulgence. In Canada I think it is made clear to the young, it is not cool to smoke and it seems to be working.
I think we have found the hilly part of Denmark. Today is up and down and up and down. The elevations are not high and the inclines are not steep but they are up, and we crawl up and then fly down. After we get out of Aarhus we ride the backcountry roads, nice asphalt, and little traffic. We mosey through little village and past farmland. The farms are still big but the villages are small again. Sometimes 20 or so houses. Great ride today.
Horsens
We finish in Horsens. Debbie notes right away this is a very ‘ordinary’ town. Real life in Denmark. There are few tourists here. The place is so ordinary it is not even mentioned in the Lonely Planet. Yet it is not a half bad stop, the downtown is vibrant, crowded pedestrian streets, loads of shops, restaurants, and cafes.
Horsens’ Bike Racks
We did score a great room for the night. It is a B&B, with no breakfast of course, but it is an entire suite. Nice bedroom, living/seating area, our own bathroom and a complete kitchen, oddly without a sink????. We have stayed in a variety of places along the way. A couple of Danhostels. They are pretty spartan places that charge for the use of bedding, but they are private rooms with ensuites. We opted for a couple of different hotels, regular type hotels, they are more expensive than the hostels and the B&B’s and frankly are much like hotels at home, nothing special. The smaller hotels we have been in are much more to my liking and hit a mid range between the regular hotels and the B&B’s. The B&B’s we have utilized are by far the best deal. Most of the time they are with shared bathroom but we have been the only guests so we have private facilities and the cost is good, somewhere between 400 and 550 DKK (about $100 CAD) per night.
Horsens
Tomorrow we will probably leave around bike rush hour again but the city is not nearly as big as Aarhus so it should be a little less harried. Our destination the famous town of Middelfart. No joke.
Horsens