Kulsviervej and Byskellet and Trelleborg

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Kulsviervej and Byskellet

   North Zealand is the part of Denmark where the kings went to hunt, and the roads around Hillerød still have the air of a royal estate. The label here points to a couple of residential lanes on the edge of town, but the real draw is what surrounds them: Frederiksborg Castle, a vast Renaissance palace of red brick and sandstone on three small islands in a lake, built mainly for Christian IV in the early 1600s, and the forest and lake country that stretches north toward Fredensborg and Esrum. Hillerød has about thirty thousand people, so fuel, food and a station for trains to Copenhagen are all here.

   Read the complete Kulsviervej and Byskellet write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kulsviervej and Byskellet is where the day begins. Next is Borgring.

2. 2. 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 comes up 74 km in. Next is Trelleborg.

3. 3. Trelleborg

   In the late tenth century, on the western coast of Zealand, King Harald Bluetooth built a fortress that must have looked to its neighbours like a statement written in earth. Trelleborg is a perfect circle, about a hundred and thirty metres across, ringed by a high rampart with four gates facing the compass points, and inside, sixteen long houses are arranged in four neat blocks around a central crossing, like a plan drawn with a compass and ruler. Archaeologists dated the timbers to around the 980s, and the same geometry turns up at other Danish fortresses, at Fyrkat in Jutland and Aggersborg by the Limfjord, which suggests a royal building programme under a single mind.

   Read the complete Trelleborg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   147 km in you reach Trelleborg. Next is back through Borgring.

4. 4. back through 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

   back through Borgring, late in the day. Next is Kulsviervej and Byskellet.

5. 5. Kulsviervej and Byskellet

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kulsviervej and Byskellet write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Kulsviervej and Byskellet. That is the ride.