In Copenhagen, everything runs on coffee.

Coffee, butter, and pastry. Also on shrimp, hot dogs, and herrings on toast with mayonnaise. That’s how everything works here, on food, and on pedals. Fini shows up to our meeting on his bike. We also call him Seb, or Sebastian. In street clothes he looks like any other Dane. In his riding gear he looks like a pro cyclist. In Mondraker kit he looks razor-sharp.

Fini runs on double espressos.

He downs them fast, holding the metal cup with care. “I like this cup!”, he says. It’s 8:30 and we’ve already had the first double of the day. He pulls on his cycling gear and the Lycra clings to him like body paint: smooth, veins standing out, muscles defined, like an anatomy class made flesh and blood.

We spread out the city map on the table and mark twenty spots for the photoshoot. We’ve got Fini for five hours, one Arid Carbon, and two rental bikes. Javi and Iván are riding a cargo ebike they’ve never touched before. It’s all shits and giggles when they test it in the car park, but the laughter dries up once they crash hard, twice. Still, it’s fun when we laugh about it later. It doesn’t matter how good a rider you are if you’ve never ridden here before. It’s like Bombay, only with bike lanes. With rules you learn the hard way, getting shouted at, but never with bells. Danes don’t like bells.

Vesterbrogade, Amaliegade, Kongens Nytorv… We glide from one street to the next, catching the scent of each neighbourhood’s economy as we pass. At the Marble Church, a man asks who the cyclist is. “Sebastian Fini, riding for Mondraker. Danish national champion”. The man looks surprised and says, “Wow, what a bike!” 

In the Meatpacking District the first crash of the day comes before the second coffee, on a straight, flat stretch. Iván rolls across the ground clutching the three cameras around his neck like a pickpocket surrounded by police. Fini calls us “fucking idiots” which may or may not have been a bit harsh. Javi has no idea what just happened, but I watched the whole thing unfold live, in slow motion, from behind. We rinse the blood away at Hart Bageri with sparkling water at ten euros a bottle. Seb orders a cortado. I go for lemon sponge cake with poppy seeds.

The swan episode makes us laugh even harder.

Fini sitting on the arse end of the pedal-boat bird, pushing out about a thousand watts and almost doing a wheelie (a “swanie”, perhaps)? The man renting the boats can hardly believe his eyes: Sebastian in a life vest and helmet. From there we cut across the city centre towards the Little Mermaid, now moving with a touch more confidence. 

The penultimate shot is on the seafront, pedalling hard along Langelinje Allé to keep pace with the Dane. The outbound leg goes fine. On the way back Javi decides to stand up on the cargo bike which sends Iván flying yet again. Mistake. Don’t ever stand up on a cargo bike that size. We trash one half of the bike and the other half of Iván’s knee. The laughter fades (though it will return later). Fini drops another F-bomb and everyone laughs, except the casualty.

By 3 p.m. Fini is changing clothes in the spotless Nordhavn neighbourhood. He downs a double espresso in seven seconds and slips into swimming trunks on the street under a towel tied around his waist, all ‘retiree in Benidorm’ style. Two minutes later he announces he’s going for a swim in the sea before heading home. He waves,   dives in headfirst like an Olympic swimmer, and we applaud. We judge him a perfect 10.

At 3:15, hugs and goodbyes. Fini leaves the way he came, taking the leftover nectarines. We keep the strawberries. It takes us an hour to return the rental bikes. Nobody crashes. Nobody shouts at us. We’ve made it. We’re locals now, or so we think.

In Copenhagen, everything runs on coffee. On coffee, and on pedals.