At 8 a.m. in Copenhagen — when around half a million people bike to work — traffic jams look a little different.

Here's a typical intersection on a bridge leading to the city center. For every car, there are dozens of bikes.

"Our aim, to be honest, was just to show the sheer, impressive volume of the spectacle," says Jim Slade, who made the video for a bike store called Larry vs. Harry.

Slade filmed from the fourth floor above the shop. "It shows cyclists on their morning commute from the residential area of Nørrebro into the city center, and is certainly one of the busiest intersections in Copenhagen, but this exodus is mirrored in other areas of the city," he says.

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While bike commuting might be growing in other cities, it's still a completely different experience in a place like Copenhagen or Amsterdam. Slade recently moved from London, where he used to ride around 25 to 30 miles a day to and from work. "There are very few other places in Europe, and probably in the States, where you can pull up to a traffic light and have three cyclists on either side of you," he says.

The city has no separate spandex-clad bike culture. "You don't have 'cyclists,' just people riding bikes because it's the quickest, most effective method of transport," Slade says.


(fastcoexist)