Fix your bike & chill!

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1. "Relax for pedestrians & cyclists"

When a cycle lane was established alongside our woodland, the instant thought was: it needs a bench! Brainstorming for literal seconds we figured sitting is nice, but being able to perform basic bike repairs is not a bad thing either. Maybe we could find an old bench and strap a bike-pump to it?

Looking into it I found our local community runs a subsidy program for one-off group led projects. With the taxpayer paying we could install something genuinely nice with a proper bicycle repair station and full picnic table!

After deciding I could be an entire community group all on my own, I submitted a proposal containing a construction plan, material quotes, maintenance plans etc. This took some time but was a genuine joy as the civil servants at Billund Kommune were both professional and enthusiastic.

Below the blueprint included in my proposal (yes, MS Paint).

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2. The project

After approval (hurrah!) it was time for some fun bureaucracy. The project, excuse me, the building site, needed three permits & a land use exemption. One permit was easy as we kinda just ignored it (per the advice to ask for forgiveness instead of permission). The fun permit was the building permit for the foundation for the repair equipment (two large buckets of concrete).

The interesting permit was the rural zone permit, a rather extensive thingy where people & organisations have a month to complain. No-one did. Which was good as I had finished construction about a month before it was granted..

2.1 So what did we actually build?

With the taxpayers paying I figured some quality was justified. Thus:

All was installed (by me, paid labour would blow up the budget) on land made level to the cycle lane (the community was so nice as to deliver three loads of soil). Thus preventing puddles and providing easy access.

While an area far away from the public road would be nicer, we decided to instead have a not-so-deep area parallel to the road. It's also fully exposed on the road side. This is all to provide more social safety and to discourage bad behaviour. The beech hedge on the other three sides will eventually give a friendly looking windbreak.

The repair stand and pump were sourced from a Dutch company. Including shipping and spare parts they are still significantly cheaper than some more local providers. I can share details per email.

There's a number of construction photos at the end of this page

2.2 Finished site

The green parts of the site will take a few years to develop. As seen on this photo of me relaxing (early 2021) it was functional from the very start.

Note on costs: with a project like this the main costs are in the big shiny things. The bench ("public outdoor quality") and the bicycle repair equipment take up the largest part of the budget at 2000-3000 euro. Anything else, trees, seeds, concrete, soil, random stuff etc is a couple 100 euro.

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3. Maintaining the site

After first exposing the site to the public in early 2021 some people were convinced it would be vandalised and trashed in weeks. A group of LEGO branded road cyclists even stopped to warn us that the bench would surely be stolen: some men would come with a trailer and load it up in bright daylight.

And honestly, I was a little bit worried about *something* happening as well. We even contemplated whether it was worth it at all. Wouldn't it all end up in tears?
And then nothing bad happened.

[Q1-2026] It's been years, and nothing really negative has happened to the repair station or the picnic area. Instead, many 100s of people have used the place and all but a handful cleaned up after themselves.

The one time someone thought they damaged the pump they send an email apologising and offered to "pay for any and all costs". This was a foreigner on a cycling holiday who could've blissfully cycled off into the Danish sunset (rain).

As I asked why they didn't stay anonymous the answer was a very elegant: "I'm not sure actually. You did ask for damage reports, and I think most people would've send a quick message.".

3.1 Maintenance

So there isn't much to maintain. I do make sure to visit the site every day or two. This isn't difficult as we walk and cycle past it all the time.

Once a year I take the repair stand and pump apart, clean and grease them. This is about an hour of work. In the growing season I cut the grass every two months or so. I think it'll be like this for at least another 15 years.

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4. Conclusion

An absolute success. In three of the four seasons people use it every single day. We've seen locals, individual cyclists, groups of walkers, and entire German multi-generational families on cycling holiday use the area. And that's all it's for. Thus an absolute success. And in that fourth season we use the bench ourselves to look at the Danish rain :)

There's one thing I would do different and that is to make the area larger, and have the equipment a meter or two further away from the road. It would make the picnic table a bit more cosy. As we own the land we might still do this one day. And while this increases the risk of vandalism (bit more hidden) I think in our area it would work out well.

Over the years I've helped some people looking to do this in their own area. If you're interested feel free to contact me.

4.1 Additional photos

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5. Construction photos

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