Berlin to Copenhagen by bicycle in 2024 for beginners

Hi 👋🏻, I’m George. A couple of years ago, my brother and I had the idea of cycling from Berlin to Copenhagen along the official Bikeway Berlin path. Having put it off for some time, we finally hit the pavement in the last week of May 2023. We’re both by no means regular cyclists, rather we’re both not-so-active computer programmers 👨🏻‍💻 who cycle mostly for commuting in our respective cities of Amsterdam and Berlin. In fact this trip was the first long distance cycling trip the both of us had ever done.

Having completed the journey, I felt compelled to put together an updated guide for cyclists looking to cruise the same route. Though there are a handful of other blogs online, most of the resources I found were outdated with information that may not be totally accurate, or was in German or Danish where some necessary details were a bit lost in translation.

Note, some comments or suggestions in this guide may be laughable from the fully-spandexed cycling pros, so take into consideration your own regular pace or skill before commenting. Also throughout this guide there are affiliate links, though I legitimately bought and would recommend these products or really recommend the accommodation.

Preparation

Like I mentioned, I read a few guides, and used these as my starting points for information:

• kellertuer.com/bike-berlin-copenhagen/ — this blog gave some good initial tips, and helped get me started.
• bike-berlin-copenhagen.com — this is the official route website. There are links to the official route, which can be imported into Google Maps via a ktx layer. We tried as much as possible to stay with the official route, as it offered roads off of main highways that were well maintained.
• komoot.com/collection/1053972/the-long-distance-bicycle-route-berlin-copenhagen

I also began training on a stationary bicycle a couple months beforehand, and did some nearby trips with my longest single ride being about 40km. I was pretty nervous starting off, knowing this new personal best distance was under half of what was expected each day 😅.

Bicycle 🚲

I had to commute from Amsterdam to Berlin to do the trip. There is a bicycle company based in Berlin which provides one-way bicycle rentals, and without having a suitable bicycle at the time, renting a bicycle was my primary plan. After paying for the rental in full, I was notified a month later that the gravel bicycle I had pre-paid for was rarely available. I changed my plan and purchased a new Cinelli Zydeco Lala bicycle for the trip. Being an Italian bicycle fan, and having restored a few vintage Bianchi and Colnago’s in the past I was stoked about riding a Cinelli.

About a month before departure I began planning the items to bring along.

Packing item suggestions:

• We rode on 700x25cc sized tires. A good portion of the official trail in Germany travels through forest floor paths that are unpaved, with loose dirt, and even at times deep sand. Other blogs mention that the whole trail is paved, though this is not true at all — especially for the German portion. Knowing this I would have opted for a wider tire — maybe something around 700x30cc to 700x35cc.
• I bought a very sturdy phone mount, and used my phone as a navigation device. I didn’t have any specific cycling GPS setup. This is the exact one I purchased, and I was really happy with: SP Connect Universal Bike Mount, and I paired it with a phone case that fit my phone. I found the popular quad-lock system too expensive.
• Comfort, comfort, comfort. If there’s anything you can do to make your bicycle more comfortable, do it. A comfy saddle, handlebar height, proper fit of your bike are all important. I watched this youtube video on fitting your bicycle properly which helped.
• Saddle Bags that detach easily. I opted for ones that did not detach easily from my rear rack, following inaccurate advice that hotels will allow you to bring your bicycle in the room. This wasn’t the case in a single place we stayed along the way. I found myself fussing a lot with removing my saddle backs and putting them on again every morning.
• A lock. Because of the point mentioned above. I had a large D-lock, which was heavy and annoying. I’d consider another option in the future.
• Cycling shorts and Chamois creme. Absolutely essential. I bought the Assos Chamois Cream and it worked really well.
• Gels and Protein bars. I bought a few different kinds of gels, and like the Sis Go Isotonic gels the best, and they were the more affordable option. I basically had 1 gel and 1 protein bar in the morning ride, and another in the afternoon ride.
• Komoot App. Explained later.
• Bug spray, you’ll need it.
• Hydration tablets — I like the Nuun Sport tablets the best for their taste and price point.
• Magnesium and paracetamol. I took these both each night, which helped for recovery — especially at the start of the trip.
• Spare tube, a bike pump, and a tire pressure gauge. Note the bike pump I bought was able to reach high PSI’s. Any cheaper options may not work.
• Spare water bag.
• Sunscreen.

🧭 The route

There are two schools of thought when it comes to pre-planning the route and accommodation: pre-booking the entire trip or planning as you go.

We decided to book accommodation as we progressed, which has its advantages and allows for more flexibility (especially in the case of bad weather), though we quickly realized our accommodation choices were very limited, especially on weekends. In some scenarios the towns of our daily destinations were entirely booked, and the nearest accommodation wasn’t very desirable or could add an hour of extra cycling in a day. Knowing what I do now, I would have pre-booked accommodation to avoid the added stress of hotel searching during times that I would have rather been resting, recovering, and appreciating a new town. The pattern of constantly searching for good food, scrolling through booking.com accompanied by route planning quickly became as enjoyable as emptying the dishwasher.

Navigating

Geared up with an iPhone for navigation, we tried a few options, and ultimately found our preferred way of getting around.

1. My first plan was to strictly follow the official trail, as a KML layer imported into “My Maps” on the Google Maps app. This works, though we quickly noticed the official trail taking large detours to take scenic routes or to tour you through a specific town. I felt the official trail adds a lot of distance for maybe not much payoff. Also using a KML layer on Google Maps is buggy and quite a bit annoying to navigate. If you lose cellular signal the KML layer disappears and you cannot see the trail.
2. The next natural progression was to try Google Maps cycling directions. The cycling times looked significantly reduced, and a bit more direct route. On one day this mistake lead us through trails of uncycleable deep sand, unstable forest floor, cobblestone, and finally 100km/hr highways without much shoulder to ride on. On top of this, resulted in an added 40km to a day as it suggested paths that simply didn’t even exist. It was safe to say we didn’t trust Google Maps cycling directions from then on.
3. After a frustrating time with Google Maps, I was relieved to find Komoot. It suggested proper cycling paths, and pretty similar routes to the official trail, though most of the time more direct than the official trail scenic suggestions. It’s easy to add points of interest to the route, and also provides a clear and accurate view of what type of surfaces you’ll be cycling on. For this trip, this app was the saving grace.

A mental note to the newbie 🧠

Being a rookie at cycling, I felt a bit of mental challenge in every ride. I know this sounds ridiculous, but we made a habit of giving a high five at the departure each morning, and at a city limits sign of our daily destination 🙌🏻. A simple thing like this that weirdly seemed to keep us motivated and in high spirits with a sense of accomplishment at the end of a day. Try something of your own and make a habit of it to keep things fun.

Our route

Our trip consisted of 6 full cycling days at roughly 80 kilometres per day, with a maximum of 100km per day. As a beginner, I found this distance do-able, without too much strain. Most of our daily cycles started around 8:30AM, and our lunch stops at around 12:30, and our arrival destination around 17:00.

If you’re looking for a bit more cycling, there are 2 parts to our route below which I’d advise on altering or adding on. Firstly, we started quite a bit away from Berlin as some other blogs recommended avoiding the crowds of Berlin, meaning we missed the most of the Brandenburg stage. It would have been nice to start closer to Berlin by adding on a day, and secondly, I would have loved to explore the island of Møn in Denmark and spend the day exploring there.

A lot of research went into routes of the day, and how to break it up into segments that would allow for a 2 hour ride in the morning, and 2 hours after a lunch break. If you’re looking for a 6 day journey, you can follow my route, and save yourself from a lot of planning. Here it goes:

Day 1

Start: Zehdenick
Lunch Break: Füstenberg / Havel
End: Neustrelitz
Cycling distance: 81.4 km

We started our trip outside of Berlin, in Zehdenick to avoid what we read was a difficult time getting out of Berlin, and to reduce the overall time of our trip to 6 days. As mentioned, if we had more time, I would have chosen to start a bit closer to Berlin to see more of the Brandenburg stage of the cycleway.

We took a break for lunch at Füstenberg / Havel, and began to plan our evening accommodation, only to notice not a single room was available for the night in Neustrelitz, or anywhere nearby. We ended up staying at the only available hotel we could find that didn’t involve a large detour. It was roughly 10km away from Neustrelitz — so if you make it the full way, the daily ride should be in the 90km range. Lots of the terrain through here was through forested areas, with dirt pathways, sometimes some mud involved.

For the most part during this ride, we followed the official route, this time while navigating a KML layer provided on the official trail’s website: http://www.bike-berlin-copenhagen.com/gps/4458/kml

Day 2

Start: Neustrelitz
Lunch break: Waren
End: Krakow am See
Cycling distance: 96.5 km

This day we decided to try something a bit different from the official trails, and followed Google Maps cycling directions. The route it had planned looked to shave off at least an hour of cycling, and the route looked deceivingly more direct. At one point while crossing a sandy meadow, Google Maps prompted me to “turn right” onto a pathway that did not exist. The alternative route, consisted of a 2 hour detour which was frustrating to immediately know, but what was more frustrating is the detour involved some deep sand dune terrain, which involved f-bombs, wipeouts and sweat 😮‍💨. Following a long jog with our bikes next to us, we arrived to a forested area where we were greeted by a massive swarm of mosquitoes. Fun times continued when my derailleur wouldn’t keep the chain on my gears and I needed to perform some quick mechanics on my bike simultaneously swatting off mozzies. It was a miserable time that would have been avoided if we would have followed the official route.

On the flip side, arriving at Waren for lunch was a fantastic treat. It’s a lovely town, with some great restaurants along a harbour of the Müritz lake. It would have been nice to have planned the journey around spending the evening in Waren, though tricky with how we’d planned out the first day of travel. We got a bit luckier this day and found accommodation in Krakow am See during our lunch stop.

☝🏻 One important note, is the official trail has a large detour to get to Krakow am See, and there’s now a much shorter, direct path now open which is also cyclist friendly. This route didn’t exist up until May 2023. I could imagine the old route has some nice paths around waterways, but knowing we were near a 100km day already it was a much welcomed shortcut.

New cycle path near Krakow am See

Much of the ride this day was also through forested areas, with either brick pathways, or dirt forest paths. These past 2 days were probably the roughest terrain we experienced throughout the entire travel. If there were heavy rain in the forecast, I could imagine the dirt paths becoming quite difficult to navigate, as they’ll turn into full mud.

We stayed at the Nordischer Hof, which was ok and had proper bicycle storage, but what was really outstanding was a curry wurst I had at this local pub nearby.

Sandy terrain at the start of the day. Was much deeper than it looks!

Day 3

Start: Krakow am See
Lunch break: Schwaan
End: Rostock
Cycling distance: 63.2 km

On day 3, we experienced a proper first cycling hangover and were feeling pretty rough in the morning. We decided to deviated from the official trails, and took a more direct route as suggested by Komoot. Instead of swinging around west to Bützow, we continued straight through to Schwaan, which was a fairly nice town to take a break at. The ride this day was pretty fast paced, and much more enjoyable than the previous days.

The pathways were decent this way, mostly paved.

We stayed at the fabulous Radisson Blu hotel which is somewhat midway located between the sea and where you’ll need to catch the ferry the next morning. The hotel lacks proper bicycle storage which can be problematic, but we managed to park our bicycles in their underground parking garage and locked them to a water pipe. Though that was a bit of an issue, the hotel makes up for it with an amazing spa 🧖 that’s free with your night’s stay. This was a great way for us to heal our battered asses, backs and shoulders. I should also mention this hotel was one of the most affordable ones on our trip!

Lavender fields

Day 4

Start: Rostock
Lunch break: Nykøbing Falster
End: Stege
Cycling distance: 63.5 km

We used the previous evening to book our ferry to Gedser that’s around €14.5 per person: https://www.scandlines.com/prices/rostock-gedser/ . The ferry does book up so maybe get this done ahead of time and don’t leave it to last minute like we did. We did a bit of a “cheat” after the ferry ride as we were worried about our timings to make it to our evening accommodation in Stege. We took a public bus from Geyser to Nykøbing Falster which departed pretty close to the Geyser ferry terminal. Note the bus only allows for 2 bicycles at a time, so you may have to wait if its busy. Add on about 30km in this day if you’d like to cycle the entire way.

Should you decide to take the same route as us, I highly recommend booking the first ferry out of Rostock in the day. The reason being you’ll take a second ferry from Stubbekøbing to Bogø, which has its last sail of the day at 18:00 (though this is listed on the official schedule, I think on our day it was much earlier, around 16:00 — hence the rush). You can check the official timetable here.

This day was a pretty special one for me personally, as I had finished a personal goal of visiting 40 countries before the age of 40 by arriving in Denmark 🇩🇰 on bicycle. We were instantly greeted by significantly better cycle paths compared to the German pathways, and for the most part we were the only ones riding. This day was quite enjoyable as we cycled through some picturesque lavender fields, rolling hills and farmland.

At this point in the travel, we noticed our bodies really catching up, with less pains and being able to regularly average around 30km/hr.

Boarding the ferry in Gedser

Boarding the ferry in Stubbekøbing (Ferry Ida)

Seaside pathways east of Nykøbing Falster

Day 5

Start: Stege
Lunch break: Præstø
End: Rødvig
Cycling distance: 73.4 km

Day 5’s ride was arguably the best ride of the trip. The landscape and views along the way are really great, there’s lots to take in and fortunately we had some really nice weather with little wind. Also with such good quality pathways you can really get some speed going — at one point in this day I actually got up to my top speed of the trip at 86km/hr 💨! There’s lots to see along this way, so alter as you’d like should you want to add on some more km’s for the day. Also, if you’re looking to add on another day to your travel, I would spend the day doing a loop around the island of Møn, as it looked like there was a lot to see around. The official trail has a nice loop to follow, which seemed like a pretty easy 48km route with lots to see along the way. Sadly we skipped this, but still really enjoyed the ride out of Møn.

We had a pretty fun stay that evening in a campground a little bit outside of town with our own small cabin. There’s no nearby restaurant, but would be fun to cook your own dinner around a fire.

Departing Stege, through Møn

Day 6

Start: Rødvig
Lunch break: Køge
End: København
Cycling distance: 78.5 km

On the final day, we started out the morning ride with a visit to a Unesco World Heritage site: Stevns Klint. The views are quite nice, and worth the small detour.

The final ride was smooth and fast, as the rest of our Denmark experience. We experienced a bit of an unceremonious arrival, and wasn’t able to do our daily high five at a city entrance sign, as there wasn’t one! Nonetheless we had a celebratory beer in a pub in Copenhagen.

Off the pathway near Køge

Stevns Klint

Getting back to Berlin

Booking a train back with your bicycle is difficult, especially planning to do it ahead of time. This took hours of research, and we still didn’t do it properly.

Only specific intercity express (ICE) trains have bicycle carriages, and it’s currently not possible to purchase a ticket across country borders with a bicycle reservation. This can apparently be done in person at one of the train stations, but by the time you get to do this in person it’s probably too late — all of the bicycle reservations will be booked up.

Here’s the way I did it, though maybe there are other options;

1. I bought my full ticket on the int.bahn.de website, and selected the “Bicycle transport available” checkbox when selecting the search criteria.
2. Then using the DSB app, I made a bicycle reservation from Koebenhavn H to Flensburg station on the same trains and timesthat I bought my rail ticket for. If you don’t see the bicycle reservation option availble, it means its sold out.
3. Then using the int.bahn.de website, I made a bicycle reservation from Flensburg station to Berlin HBF, again on the same trains as I bought my rail ticket for.

Good luck, have fun ✌🏻

That’s it! Hope this guide helps you out in some way.
Happy cycling!