Why this ride
A 199 km round trip from Køge - roughly 3 h 42 in the saddle. The stops in between: Roskilde Cathedral, Store Dyrehave, Kronborg Castle and back through Store Dyrehave.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Borgring and Kronborg Castle
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 199 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 42
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Borgring → Roskilde Cathedral
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 26 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 26 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Borgring
In 2014, archaeologists using laser scanning of the landscape noticed a faint circle in a field near Køge, on the Danish island of Zealand, about forty kilometres south-west of Copenhagen. Excavations confirmed what they had hoped: it was a Viking ring fortress, one of a small group of perfectly circular fortresses built in Denmark in the late tenth century, probably under King Harald Bluetooth. It was named Borgring, and it was the first new ring fortress to be found in Denmark in over sixty years.
Read the complete Borgring write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Borgring is where the day begins. Next is Roskilde Cathedral.
2. Roskilde Cathedral
Roskilde Cathedral is where Denmark keeps its kings. Since the fifteenth century, almost every Danish monarch has been buried here, and the chapels and crypts hold around forty kings and queens, from medieval stone tombs to ornate baroque sarcophagi and modern designs. The cathedral itself, begun in the late twelfth century under Bishop Absalon, the warrior-churchman who also founded Copenhagen, was one of the first big brick Gothic churches in Scandinavia, and it set the style for church building across the region. UNESCO listed it in 1995. Inside, look for the clock with the figure of St George slaying the dragon, which strikes the hour, and the pillar where royal visitors have marked their height.
Read the complete Roskilde Cathedral write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Roskilde Cathedral comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Store Dyrehave.
3. Store Dyrehave
North of Copenhagen the royal family once hunted on a scale that reshaped the landscape, and Store Dyrehave, the Great Deer Park, near Hillerød, is a piece of that design. The forest is cut by straight rides, long avenues that radiate like the spokes of a wheel, so that horsemen and hounds could follow a stag at speed without losing sight of it. This kind of hunting, called par force, was fashionable at European courts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the Danish kings built an entire landscape for it, now recognised by UNESCO as the Par Force Hunting Landscape in North Zealand.
Read the complete Store Dyrehave write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Store Dyrehave. Next is Kronborg Castle.
4. Kronborg Castle
Hamlet never lived at Kronborg, but Shakespeare put him there, and the castle has been Elsinore in the imagination of the world ever since. It stands on a point of land at Helsingør where the Øresund narrows to about four kilometres, with Sweden clearly visible across the water, and for centuries it controlled one of the most important shipping lanes in Europe. King Frederik II built the castle in its Renaissance form in the 1570s and 1580s, and every ship passing through the strait had to stop and pay the Sound Dues, a toll that made the Danish crown rich for over four hundred years until it was abolished in 1857. Kronborg was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2000.
Read the complete Kronborg Castle write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kronborg Castle, about halfway. Next is back through Store Dyrehave.
5. back through Store Dyrehave
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Store Dyrehave write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Store Dyrehave sits at 136 km, about halfway. Next is back through Roskilde Cathedral.
6. back through Roskilde Cathedral
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Roskilde Cathedral write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Roskilde Cathedral comes up about 173 km into the recorded legs. Next is Borgring.
7. Borgring
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Borgring write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Borgring closes the day.
Leg by leg
Borgring to Roskilde Cathedral
Borgring → Roskilde Cathedral is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Roskilde Cathedral to Store Dyrehave
Roskilde Cathedral → Store Dyrehave is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Store Dyrehave to Kronborg Castle
Store Dyrehave → Kronborg Castle is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kronborg Castle to back through Store Dyrehave
Kronborg Castle → back through Store Dyrehave is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Store Dyrehave to back through Roskilde Cathedral
back through Store Dyrehave → back through Roskilde Cathedral is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Roskilde Cathedral to Borgring
back through Roskilde Cathedral → Borgring is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.