How to get a used bike in Copenhagen

This article was fist published 9 October 2014. It has been updated 30 June 2019.

Bicycles are everywhere in Copenhagen, but what’s the best way to get your own? From police auctions to facebook groups, here’s how to best weigh your bike options.

Happy hunting!

Bicycle shops

Let’s start with the most obvious – bicycle shops. Bicycle shop assistant Jacob works for Jupiter Ekstra, which sells both new and used bikes for around DKK 1300.

It just took me three minutes to get a really good bike for 800 DKK

Joanna, sociology student

They are checked and repaired before put for sale and therefore reliable for everyday commuting in the city.

»We sell about ten second-hand bikes a week, they are really popular among students,« he says.

Although most of the bicycle shops in central part of Copenhagen don’t deal with used bikes, you can find several who do in Nørrebro, Vesterbro or Østerbro neighbourhoods. Some shops don’t mind the trouble and post their second-hand offers online.

Examples of this are Second Hand Bikes or Buddha Bikes, which both operate in Østerbro.

Join Facebook groups

Sociology student Joanna likes the Facebook group ESN-CPH: Give-buy-sell-rent.

»It just took me three minutes to get a really good bike for 800 DKK,« she says. The Facebook group has users trading all kinds of imaginable items, from Burberry bags to student books.

Police auction

Have you ever thought about what happens to lost bikes in Copenhagen? The local police collects them and holds public auctions every month to find new and more responsible owners for them.

You can read our recent article ‘Bicycle hunting at the police auction’ and a bit about what kind of quality you should expect from the bicycles sold.

Find a list of the bicycles on sale some days before the auction and all the relevant information about the bike auction here.

Den Blå Avis

24-year old Copenhagen Business School student Marie from Germany is right now riding a used Raleigh bought via the Danish website www.dba.dk.

»It is definitely the best place to look for a used bike. I’d recommend aiming for the ads with good quality pictures and longer description than just going for a bike’s brand name,« she says.

Dba.dk is the online version of a popular local classified newspaper called Den Blå Avis (The Blue Newspaper) which has now closed down.

Ask a friend or a fellow student

Italian exchange student Luca bought his fixed gear bike from his flat owners’ brother.

»Word of mouth is sometimes the most efficient. Ask your friends, fellow students, co-workers. Sometimes it is as if Copenhagen is a city revolving around bikes and somebody always knows someone who probably could come up with a good offer for you,« Luca suggests.

What to keep in mind

Freddie works as a part-time mechanic at a bicycle shop in Central Copenhagen, and likes repairing stuff, of course. He’ll recommend you to think about the work that might come along with buying a used bike.

»Before buying a second-hand bike you should really think about the pros and cons. There are parts that are going to give up probably sooner than later. If you are not able to fix it yourself, a second hand bike could in short time become actually more expensive than buying a new one,« the mechanic says.