This is not postcard Germany but working Germany, which has its own appeal. The Mittelland Canal, the big east-west waterway that links the Rhine and the Elbe, runs close by, and barges of a thousand tonnes slide along it as calmly as swans. Misburg, just to the north, was a cement town for a century and still carries traces of that heavy industry, with chalk pits turned into lakes.
Lehrte, a town of forty-four thousand some eight kilometres away, owes its existence to the railway. Lines meeting there in the mid-nineteenth century made it a junction, and the town grew around the crossing of tracks. It is a handy provider of petrol stations, supermarkets and fast food, with a station that still shunts goods trains through its yards. The suburb of Laatzen, near the trade-fair grounds, is the other practical neighbour.
For a motorcyclist the early miles are about escaping. The roads leave the city along straight, flat arteries, with traffic lights and roundabouts and a thread of commuters, and the trick is to get off the main routes quickly onto the lanes between the villages. Within a few kilometres you are on narrow tarmac threading between fields and small woods, past brick farms and the odd wind turbine. The soil is rich loess, dark and fertile, the same soil that made the farmers of the Börde region wealthy, and in summer the grain stands tall and gold.
Weather here is a matter of wind. There is little to stop the westerlies, and on a blustery day the straights are hard work, so give yourself margin. Early on a spring morning, when the air is crisp and the sun low, this is a pleasant start. The way east leads on toward Helmstedt and the edge of the old frontier, so check your fuel and your tyres, and enjoy the open road.