travel: Green Channel

THE CITY Bike scheme is now in full swing in Copenhagen - although there are one or two impediments to the greenest form of city transport.

There are around 120 bike stations dotted around the centre of the Danish capital, from where tourists are invited to pick up a bike using just a 20kr coin (pounds 1.90); the idea is the same as for supermarket trolleys, ie you replace the bicycle to reclaim your coin. The bikes are single- speed, solid tyre jobs, painted in the colours of the sponsors (one of whom is the British Embassy, motto "Britain likes bikes").

The problems that arise are two-fold: first, there seems to be a band of bicycle bandits who roam the streets looking for bikes temporarily left by their riders; they take the bikes in order to retrieve the 20kr coins. Next, there is a hard core of robbers who seem to prefer to take the bikes whole, without the nicety of using a coin, so bike stands around the Central Station have neither bikes nor receptacles.

The idea, (of free bikes, not of nicking them), has happily spread north to the small town of Farum, where travellers are invited to borrow bikes free of charge and cycle off to see such attractions as Denmark's deepest lake, Furesoen. Furthermore these are good, well-maintained bicycles, which perform rather better than their chunky counterparts in the capital.