Seelze sits on the western edge of Hannover, where the Leine river and the Mittelland Canal run almost side by side across a flat plain, and its principal claim on the map is as a railway town. A huge marshalling yard has long dominated its southern flank, and the freight trains that rumble in and out give the place a faintly industrial rhythm. The countryside beyond is quiet, with fields, poplars and farm tracks, and a long, low line of woodland on the horizon.
That line is the Deister, a wooded ridge about fifteen kilometres to the south-west, which was once a centre of coal mining and is now a favourite of local walkers and mountain bikers. A little farther north, the Steinhuder Meer, the largest lake in Lower Saxony, is a shallow, reed-fringed expanse, popular with sailors and with flocks of migrating birds. Wunstorf, a small town nearby, has a Romanesque abbey church and an air base that occasionally brings giant transport planes low over the roads.
The ride that ends here has visited two great gaps in the hills. The Porta Westfalica is where the Weser breaks through the Wiehengebirge and the Wesergebirge, and a huge monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I, completed in 1896, stands on one side of the gap, with a view over the valley and the plain beyond. The Solling is a quiet upland forest further south, a landscape of beech and spruce with narrow roads and almost no traffic.
The riding in the Seelze district is flat and plain, and the main hazards are farm vehicles, cyclists and wind. In summer, the evening light on the fields is excellent, and the mist rises from the Leine in the early morning. Speed cameras guard some of the larger roads, and road works are common in the area.
Fuel is easy in Seelze and Letter, with stations on the main roads and supermarkets in the centre. Cafes and bakeries are found in most of the villages. Hannover's city centre is only a few kilometres away, so a last coffee in the old town, around the Marktkirche, is an option.