Some rides begin in a car park, and some begin on a boat. The ferry across the Elbe from the Landungsbrücken to Finkenwerder is one of the better openings to a day on the road, because for the price of a public transport ticket you get a half-hour cruise through the biggest port in Germany. The passenger ferries run out past the great cranes, the dry docks and the container terminals, with huge ships sliding by at what feels like arm's length, and the smell of diesel, salt and wet rope. If you are starting from the other side, the feeling is the same in reverse.
Finkenwerder itself is an odd place, a former fishing island in the Elbe, a half-rural enclave inside Hamburg, with a village of thatched houses and old fishermen's cottages beside a modern aircraft factory. The Airbus plant here assembles and paints a good number of the company's planes, and when a new aircraft is ready you can see it on the apron beside the river, a huge white shape among the apple trees. The contrast is an unlikely one, and it is part of the island's charm. The writer Gorch Fock, born here as Johann Kinau in 1880, wrote tales of the sea, and the German navy named its sail training ship after his pen name.
The island has a long tradition of fishing, and the Finkenwerder fishermen's old plaice, caught in the Elbe, is still a local dish. Orchards on the edge of the island belong to the Altes Land, the great fruit-growing region on the south bank of the river, and in spring the blossom comes right to the doorsteps. A short stretch of dike on the western side gives a long view down the river, with ships heading for the sea.
For riders, the start from here is gentle. The roads leave the island over a causeway and head south and west through orchards, along dikes, across flat farmland with sky on every side. The landscape is soft and flat, so the riding is easy and quiet, and in the early morning the light on the river is pearl. Fuel stations and shops are in the town, and the ferry is simple to use, though motorbikes need to check the vehicle ferry timetables. Wind off the river can be sharp, so a layer is wise.