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Thanks Buddy! We agreed to be more specific about meeting places from now on. Our new plans were to look at the map, preferably the night before, and decide where we would ride to that day, then meet on main street at a specified time. That way everyone could leave whenever they wanted, without having to wait for the other party. Plus, we were free to choose any route we desired, as long as we reached the specified meeting place on time. We chose Fakse, an estimated sixty kilometers away. Sharon and I left. We stopped at the Shell in Ballerup to use the restroom. Soon Arran and Rebecca showed up. Figured, now we had chosen a meeting place we would probably be bumping into each other all day long. Arran and Rebecca bought the same map we had. They left. We headed into town to buy groceries. Sharon hit the aisles of Iso; I watched our bikes while kids splashed in a fountain spurting columns of water straight up out of the sidewalk. First, three and four year olds played, squealing hysterically as they ventured too close and the water spattered them. Later, older school kids cavorted in the fountain, receiving a thorough soaking, walking right through the gushing columns of water. At a nearby Sports shop, I bought a Presta pump. When I asked the guy how much, he enunciated, "Twenty-five." I repeated, "Twenty-five?" "Yep," he confirmed. I gave him a fifty kroner note and he rang it up at thirty-five. Hmmm. I swear I could hear the difference between twenty-five and thirty-five. Sharon was eating Muesli by the cemetery wall when I returned. Her front tire needed air. I had played around with the old pump while Sharon was in the grocery store and I accomplished letting air out of her tire, instead of putting it in. I screwed on the Presta adapter and then stuck the pump on. It was a Zefal pump, like our old one, but made entirely of plastic, unlike our old metal one. The spring was always on in the handle too, which made pumping difficult, but I managed to squeeze in seventy pounds. Two unkempt guys and a gal came along on their hard luck bikes and sat on a brown bench kitty corner to us. Out came three beers. The Danish were straightforward about drinking in public. They belched loudly, complimenting how good the beer was. Next, the hash pipes came out and they all toked a little. Nothing like a beer and a toke at ten in the morning. One scraggly guy came over and pointed, "If you need water there's a tap just over the fence in the graveyard." No doubt, they were friendly enough. We passed through Tåstrup, with its many futuristic looking modern buildings with peaks and points and mounds of sculpture. Taastrup had bike paths leading off in all directions. There was a distinct lack of populace. Tåstrup was huge but there was hardly anyone around. The place echoed an eerie deserted sound. Even the wind sounded hollow. I expected to see tumbleweeds rolling down main street. We had trouble getting out of Tåstrup. All the bike paths led back into town or into the housing suburbs. At one point we were along a major road when the bike path abruptly ended and posted a "No Bicycles" sign. The bike path took us back into Taastrup. Sharon began to show signs of discouragement. Eventually, disregarding the bike paths, we found a main road and followed it out of town. While following signs for the Margarita route a man flagged us down and wanted to know if he could ask us some questions. He claimed to be a Canadian, but he had the strangest accent I had ever heard: a soft Irish-Aussie lilt combined with expressions from countries we had visited. "Ya. Ya," from Denmark, "Brilliant," from Britain, and a mixed bag of other terms. He said he hadn't lived in Canada for years and had been working in Ireland, Australia, the Soviet Union and now Denmark. The poor man didn't know where to call home. After eating pizza by a daycare in Greve we briefly passed through the town of Tune. It was the first time in my life I had been in tune. We picked up the bike route and followed it, meandering along country roads and back lanes. We lost the main track once, ending up in a farmer's yard. It was getting close to six: our scheduled time to meet Arran and Rebecca in Fakse. With the headwind and meandering lanes Fakse was taking longer to reach than we had figured. At five o'clock the map still showed we had thirty kilometers to go. A lone cyclist on a training run passed us. I grabbed his tail and hung on the best I could. On the hills he pounded his pedals as hard as he could, trying to shake us, but we'd catch him on the flat. It really helped to be behind him into the wind and we stuck with him for half an hour and covered twenty kilometers. Then he turned onto another road. I shouted, "Thanks, buddy!" We stopped by a picnic table next to a river and checked our map to make sure we caught the right road to Fakse. I plotted the map to figure out where we were while Sharon disappeared to the river to cool her overexerted red face. When we saw a sign for Tokkerup we knew we were on the right track. Sharon stayed at the road into Fakse while I went to check for Arran and Rebecca in town. I found them by the fountain. It was six-oh-five. We had gone a windy ninety-eight kilometers. I went back to retrieve Sharon. She asked how long they'd been there. I announced, "Judging from Rebecca's red face, not long." They had arrived a few minutes earlier. Rebecca told us there were good Danishes in the Fog bakery. On Arran's advice to "load up on Danishes before we split" we indulged. The Danishes oozed different flavors with layers of decadence. I now understood why everyone else attempted to copy the Danes pastries. |
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