South of Hannover the flat plain starts to fold, and the small town of Pattensen, on the Leine, marks the place where the ride leaves the city for the hills. The land here is the Calenberger Land, a fertile farming country of wheat and sugar beet, with big brick farmhouses and low ridges on the horizon. Beyond it rise the limestone ridges of the Leinebergland, the Ith and the Hils, long, forested crests with cliffs and old quarries, and they are the reason the ride exists.
The Ith is a thin ridge about twenty kilometres long, with limestone cliffs, beech woods and caves, and its roads climb from the valley in a series of bends and hairpins that are a pleasure on a quiet morning. The Hils is a wider, wilder upland, with dense forest and few villages, and the roads that cross it are often narrow, shaded and damp. Surfaces vary, with sections of smooth asphalt and others scarred by forestry lorries, and leaves and mud can make corners slippery in autumn. Watch for deer at dawn and dusk, and for cyclists on sunny weekends.
Near Pattensen stands a very odd building indeed, the Marienburg, a fairy-tale Gothic Revival castle with turrets, battlements and a courtyard, built in the 1860s by King George V of Hanover as a gift for his wife, Queen Marie. The kingdom was annexed by Prussia soon after, and the royal family never really lived there, which gives the whole place a slightly melancholy air. The castle sits on a hill above the Leine valley and can be seen from the road for some distance.
Pattensen has nearly fourteen thousand people and offers fuel stations, bakeries and a couple of restaurants serving German standards such as schnitzel and asparagus in season, from late April to June, when the whole region is mad for it. The larger city of Hildesheim lies to the south-east, with a Romanesque cathedral and famous rose bush, and Hannover is close behind you. Ride on a weekday if you can, because the best roads get busy with motorcyclists on Saturdays and Sundays. Spring and autumn are good, and the first frosts bring a dangerous sheen to shaded bends.