Denmark has always
been a cycling country – thousands upon thousands of people commute
to work on their bikes everyday and Denmark is always mentioned as a
pioneer country in the field of bicycling. Nonetheless, most people
are these days riding around on bicycles manufactured in various
countries in the Far East, which I think is a bit sad considering the
rich (and important!) bicycle heritage of our small country. I hope
this doesn't come off, as being the usual pathetic nonsense cliché of “things aren't as good, as they were in the good old days”, as there is still a lot of quality
bikes being manufactured in other parts of the world. Instead I would
rather use this post to tell a little story about a Danish bicycle
manufacturer. I can't deny that there will be a pinch of
romanticizing and nostalgia, though.
Nordisk Cyclefabrik
A/S (notice the different spelling and even pronunciation) was
probably established in 1895 by one H.P. Hansen. I'm not quite sure
about the last part, as the former Danish time trial world champion
Henry-Peter Hansen, who later became affiliated with the company,
wasn't born before 1902. So either they shared the name or there has
been some misunderstandings over the years. I invite you to decide for yourself. After moving the factory around Sjælland the first few
years, the manufacturing was moved to the free port of Copenhagen.
The free port was a place filled with different factories and a few
other bicycle companies also had factories there.
What was different
about Nordisk Cyclefabrik was the bicycle they made, that didn't have any
chain like most other bicycles did. Rather they made a bike that was
shaft-driven
(“kardantræk” in Danish) with the name “La Danoise”. The
type of bike became quite popular at the time and was even exported
to other countries; even the Netherlands. Of course they also made
normal chain-driven bikes and around the 1930's they introduced the
Danish people to the Swedish Crescent, that still exists today. In
these years the factory also made a bike, that is still known today
as the “sofacykel”. It was a bike with a complete seat rather
than just a saddle and the positioning of the rider was much more
laid back; not far from the cruisers seen today. I'm not sure, whether or not it was
that big a success though. It was meant to be more comfortable, but it
turned out to be a quite awkward position to ride in.
In 1933, the company
moved to Vanløse west of Copenhagen, where Henry-Peter Hansen had
built a factory in a functionalist style typical of the period. From this
period it is quite hard to find information about the factory and
what happened. What I do know is that in the 1950's the factory was
eventually sold to a Swedish company called Nymanbolagen, that already
produced brands like the aforementioned Crescent. The old factory
building in Vanløse was sold to the government in 1969 and it now
houses a school of education, but what happened between these years I
haven't been able to stumble upon anywhere.
I hope this little
story will be of interest to some people and that we some day can see
bicycles being manufactured for the people in Denmark again. Of
course there are still Danish bicycle manufacturers, but to my
knowledge it is mostly expensive, custom-built luxury bikes like
Sögreni and Cykelmageren and cargo bikes like the Christiania bike
and Nihola. I would love to see everyday bikes being manufactured in
Denmark again and not just assembled.
All words by Lars Engelbrecht
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