Denmark or Sweden (edit)

[ootini]

I love Copenhagen, been there quite a few times wuth work, but only stayed within the city, so don't know much about the countryside.
I was curious, anyone ever done any long distance riding / bikepacking out there?
Thoughts on it?

Cheers

[Verena]

No, but the first thing I thought of when you said "Denmark" was liquorice ice cream. You must try some, if you haven't already, it's delicious.

[woodsmith]

Great place for road cycling, lots of dedicated cycle paths, big cycling culture, drivers aware of cyclists and are motorists are automaticly at fault in any bike-vehicle accident, pretty good road surfaces, lots of wind, expensive, countryside is mildly undulating at best, homogenous architecture with very little regional variation. Doesn't have "everymans right" to wild camp like Norway and Sweden. camp sites are expensive and you need to be a member of the national association to use them. There are basic wooden shelters scattered around the country which are free to use, non bookable, often have fire pits with a wood supply.
Danes are nice people and I enjoyed living there ( 10+ years) but as a bikepacking destination, or a tourist destination in general, I'd give it a miss.
There are places where its permitted to wild camp for one night.

https://eng.naturstyrelsen.dk/experienc ... in-nature/

[ledburner]

Great place for road cycling, lots of dedicated cycle paths, big cycling culture, drivers aware of cyclists and are motorists are automaticly at fault in any bike-vehicle accident, pretty good road surfaces, lots of wind, expensive, countryside is mildly undulating at best, homogenous architecture with very little regional variation. Doesn't have "everymans right" to wild camp like Norway and Sweden. camp sites are expensive and you need to be a member of the national association to use them. There are basic wooden shelters scattered around the country which are free to use, non bookable, often have fire pits with a wood supply.
Danes are nice people and I enjoyed living there ( 10+ years) but as a bikepacking destination, or a tourist destination in general, I'd give it a miss.
There are places where its permitted to wild camp for one night.

https://eng.naturstyrelsen.dk/experienc ... in-nature/

A mate said, so second hand experience. ...
When you follow the cycle paths network (I suppose like our NCN routes) They were 'too quiet'(remote(?)) and took you away from towns & villages, so finding campsites and shops was a big Detour (may 3-4 miles/6 kms with no guaranteed reward... ).
I'll stick to 'Copenhagen-Cycle-Chic'. when I'm in the city in Sept...

[woodsmith]

A mate said, so second hand experience. ...
When you follow the cycle paths network (I suppose like our NCN routes) They were 'too quiet'(remote(?)) and took you away from towns & villages, so finding campsites and shops was a big Detour (may 3-4 miles/6 kms with no guaranteed reward... ).
I'll stick to 'Copenhagen-Cycle-Chic'. when I'm in the city in Sept...

I can't comment on that aspect as I never did any cycle touring but I will say that theres not much happening in rural denmark and services can be few and far between sometimes. Part of the North sea Cycle route ran close to where i lived as did the Lymfjord route and i don't remember seeing a cycle tourer pass through in the whole time I was there.

This is the only danish route on bikepacking.com excluding the trans European thing.
https://bikepacking.com/routes/around-north-denmark/

[Linkpin]

Cycle toured Berlin-Copenhagen quite a few years ago and found the Danish part really enjoyable - very easy navigation as following cycle routes, plenty of places to camp and lovely empty beaches to swim from. Flat, too, in the main, which was handy as I was singlespeed.

Not sure it would be high up my list to return to for bikepacking though. I'd definitely head to Sweden as a preference over Denmark any day of the week.

[ootini]

Thanks for the info everyone. I've spent time in Sweden too, so if it's that much better than Denmark then I'm happy to head over the water. I think I'd just assumed cycling was more culturally embedded in Denmark.

What are the Swedish options like?

[The Cumbrian]

I haven't been cycling in Sweden, but I worked there for six months and did a bit of walking and camping.

Camping is allowed almost anywhere, and there are lots of shelters with firepits dotted about. It's a very good place to take a hammock too.

If a track looks cyclable then you can take a bike there (that's what the local mountain bikers that I worked with said anyway). Away from the main roads, it's very quiet, and what we would consider B roads are often not even tarmacked, at least in the area where I was based south of Gothenburg.

The 1:50,000 maps are very good, and similar to the OS equivalents. English is widely spoken, and anything larger than a small village tends to have an Ica shop (very similar to Spar over here), which will make most bikepackers feel at home.

[ootini]

I've spent a fair bit of time in Stockholm and also further south in Vaxjo, but never really leaving the urban areas. Although the scenery on the trains and internal flights was breath taking. Maybe Sweden is a more practical option than Denmark.

[Linkpin]

In my experience (not vast, admittedly), although cycling is certainly more embedded in the Danish culture and that does make it a great place to ride your bike, the variety of scenery, choice of forest and mountain tracks and ability to wild camp make Sweden a far more appealing choice. There are some lovely forests and lakes south of Stockholm in the Tyresta national park and loads of other options further north I haven't explored as much, although the forests north of Sysslebäck were nice when I was last there over a decade ago.

I fancy a crack at this, which spends ages in Sweden and might give some good starting points: https://europeandividetrail.com/

[faustus]

I'd give another nod to Sweden too. Not cycled there sadly, but from the visits i've made it's got the terrain and space, and allemansrätten like Norway and Finland. I've always had the High Coast/Hoga Kusten area on my radar to ride at some point, I know people who visited there and it was beautiful: https://www.hogakusten.com/en/experienc ... or/cycling

Also, there's been some good articles on bikepacking.com about rides in Sweden, worth checking the trail map https://bikepacking.com/bikepacking-routes/

[ledburner]

I'd give another nod to Sweden too. Not cycled there sadly, but from the visits i've made it's got the terrain and space, and allemansrätten like Norway and Finland.

I had to look that up so I thought i'd share with the uniformed.

The freedom to roam, or "everyman's right", is the general public's right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise. The right is sometimes called the right of public access to the wilderness...