Rodby, Denmark
Day Seventeen 101 miles 1873ft
Is not a type of Danish coffee, but is a reflection of the roads cycled today. Denmark proved to us, that it is Europe’s lowest nation with a maximum height above sea level of just over 500 ft. 
After a great weekend’s rest exploring Copenhagen with my wife, Caroline, who flew over for the weekend, today was back on the bike
Aside from the compulsory visit to see the Little Mermaid, paid for by the Carlsberg brewing magnate, the main highlight was a visit round the house of Karen Blixen, who is known in the UK for “Out of Africa”. As a cycling connection her former coffee plantation in Kenya was sold off for housing, which became known as the Karen suburb of Nairobi where Chris Froome was raised.
Today I was joined by my brother Peter, who we picked up at Copenhagen airport, at the same time we dropped Caroline off on Sunday evening.
Part of doing this tour is to experience different types of cycling. Leaving our well defended campsite in glorious but cool sunshine, we then had the fun of riding through Copenhagen in the Monday morning rush hour.
Whilst I would not dream of riding in London like this, the cycle paths and priority to cyclists made it fun. I understand Copenhagen has an award as one of the worlds most bike friendly cities. It was amazing how quickly some of the guys in suits sped along to get their bikes into special multi storey bike parking too.
Leaving the city past Copenhagen Zoo. We did not see any giraffes. The road took us out of the suburbs and along behind the coast, again still on cycle paths, all the way to our coffee halt after 32 miles.
Turning inland, Peter and I then,still mostly on cycle paths, probably made the fewest number of turns over the next 30 miles ever.
At one stage we could see 6 miles straight ahead. Luckily the wind had switched completely from last week and was mostly pushing us along. This added to the fact that the road was not that hilly led to us covering 25 miles in under an hour and 20 minutes (19mph ave).
This is reputedly Rapunzel’s tower in the best preserved castle in Denmark, though is some way off our selection in the UK.
Just before our lunch stop we crossed a two mile long bridge linking two islands even that was mostly flat and straight.
A great alfresco lunch was added to as Monica had obtained the largest Danish pastry ever
Another tedious bit of straight line riding across the next island took us over a very windy bridge to the final island of the day
At this stage we were able to find some more enjoyable country roads through farmland to the campsite.
The flat land was mostly laid to agriculture with large fields and very few trees, though I did manage to forage 3 sorts of wild plum, for a fab fruit stew this evening, during our lunch stop.
An Evening barbecue was followed by a chat round the camp fire.
It was great to cycle today with Peter, as those straight featureless roads would have been much tougher on your own.
Tomorrow we cross from Denmark to Germany, where Peter will cycle with me before Nigel will take him to Hamburg to catch A flight home as I proceed to the overnight halt.
nbjtours 