After the ‘night of noise,’ we woke up, showered (except for Tim – I guess dad takes his second shower for him?) and had breakfast. I grabbed an apple for the road while the guys each made themselves sandwiches. They can actually make do with a sandwich for lunch despite all the miles we’re putting in – I guess that’s why neither of them have the pot belly I do. It was a cinch getting on to Cycling Route 9 from Helsingoer to Copenhagen and the route itself was a breeze as well. When I did my trip around here two years ago, the Helsingborg – Copenhagen part was the second leg. Back then, I had a serious headwind and it was as hard as the Trelleborg – Helsingborg leg the day before, even though it was probably less than half the distance. I had left in the morning and didn’t make it to Copenhagen until 3:00 p.m. at the earliest. Today, we had a tailwind and were in Copenhagen by 11:00 a.m. (after having taken a break!). I’m not sure if it was solely the tailwind, but I felt a lot better today. If I got dropped on climbs, it was minor. My dad did most of the leading, but I was in front at times as well and rarely fell to the rear. Hopefully, my legs will stay this fresh.
I had originally planned on maybe taking the guys on the tour of the Carlsberg brewery, but since these guys don’t really want to do any touristy things, I just took them to Nyhavn. I thought they might want get something to eat or at least have a beer at one of the outdoor cafes along the harbor, but they just wanted to head to Roskilde. Still, they loved it and said that it was definitely worth the detour.
It had been mostly blue skies up to this point, but we started to feel little droplets of rain. It never got terrible – never wet enough to break a phone – but we did get wet again and Tim had to dry my shoes in the sun upon arrival (yes, the sun came out just as we pulled into our hotel’s courtyard).
Heading out of Copenhagen, I ended up dropping the guys. I guess I’m more used to the aggressive riding style of the city, but I stopped and waited for them twice to catch up. I know my dad did a ton of city riding back in the eighties, but he must be more out of practice than I am. Again, even though our route took us in an L-shape (first south, now west), we still had a tailwind.
Somewhere along the way, we decided to get out of the rain and right at that point, we spotted a McDonald’s off to the side. I got myself a McChicken meal but my dad and Tim just had colas while they ate their stolen sandwiches. (You guys do realize we can buy warm meals between cities in Denmark, right?) My (replacement) Fitbit is working fine, but it stopped syncing with my phone after our McDonald’s stop. I guess I’ll have to wait until Antje brings a charger to the vacation home so I can reset it.
We were able to take one road from Helsingoer to Copenhagen and likewise one road basically the whole way from Copenhagen to Roskilde (aptly titled “Roskildevej” – pronounced ‘Ros-kill-uh-vai’ or as my phone says ‘Ros-kild-vedge’). Our hotel, the Zleep, is located inside a courtyard and lacks any signage, so we ended up guessing that it was here based on what my phone said and the address we had.
Post-arrival, I got to talk to Antje and the kids while Tim was out drying my shoes in the sun. After writing my first blog entry, I went to the ironing room to try to dry out my cycling clothes and struggled to find the setting that was warm enough to evaporate some moisture while not hot enough to burn lycra. I then met the guys outside in the courtyard. My dad had already had two beers by this point and was looking forward to another. Tim finally managed to pick up not one, but two maps of Denmark, so he was finally at peace. I tried calling Ted, my mom and Beth with the latter eventually being successful after the second or third attempt. Beth and I reminisced briefly about our trip to Roskilde in 2001 – fifteen years ago! I actually realized after talking to her that I had visited Roskilde a total of three times before today: I forgot about the 2002 trip right before I went to study Swedish in Uppsala. I originally forgot because all I did was spend the night here after seeing Mum play in Copenhagen. I did, however, remember the time I spent here with Antje while she was going to study in Odense. Antje: wasn’t it our last night together that summer? I have this vague memory of getting back to Roskilde from Copenhagen late, waking up in the middle of the night and getting sick and then taking a train a few hours later to get to the airport. I have no recollection of ever flying out of Copenhagen airport though, so that last part could be a mistake. At any rate, it was 11 years ago and my memory is foggy. I’m definitely getting old. Just ask my legs.
Dinner was just around the corner at the building attached to our hotel. I finally got my burger. It was a big “spicy” burger with bacon and jalapenos and came with huge steak fries. It was great – I really need something like this during the day though so my legs can take advantage of the energy spike. I also had two beers from my favorite brewery: Mikkeller. Mom called back when we were being served bread (I could still get the hotel’s wi-fi from the restaurant) and talked to dad, Tim and me for a bit. After dinner, we walked to the cathedral, went back to our room and quickly decided we should get ice cream, so we went to this place that had self-serve soft-serve ice cream. I frantically tried to get it to swirl around in my cup, but the ice cream just came too fast and all I could do was layer it haphazardly. But in trying my best to get it to swirl, I totally overfilled the cup – I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. Still, my kiwi-vanilla ice cream was great. We walked around some more and ate our ice creams and eventually made it back to the hotel. Dad spent a lot of time trying to explain to Tim how to upload photos to the blog (then promptly fell asleep at 8:15), so you should be seeing some sights. I’m afraid my phone is mostly attached to my bike’s stem, so I haven’t taken too many pictures, but I’ll see what I have to share before publishing this post.
I think we came from Copenhagen and stayed one night in Roskilde. That was August 2005. Yes, you were sick that night and we took an early train back to Kastrup.