Stade is a Hanseatic town that most riders cross without noticing, which is a shame, because it is one of the better-looking small cities in the north German lowlands. It sits on the Schwinge, a sluggish little river that reaches the Elbe a few kilometres away, and the old harbour basin in the middle of town still has a wooden crane and a row of gabled brick and timber houses leaning over the water. Sweden held the town for most of the later seventeenth century, and it was a serious military post in those years, which is why the fortifications and the ring of moats around the centre are so well preserved.
For a rider it is, first of all, a practical place. With more than forty thousand people it has fuel, supermarkets and bakeries without any fuss, and the ring road lets you fill up and be gone in ten minutes. If you have the time, though, leave the bike near the harbour and walk. The cobbles in the old streets are rough and wet in the morning, and you do not want to be riding on them with cold tyres. A coffee beside the water is a good way to start a ride that is going to spend the day on flat, straight and often windy roads.
The land around here is the point. To the east lies the Altes Land, a drained Elbe marshland that is one enormous orchard, with apple and cherry trees planted on dykes between narrow ditches. In late April and early May the blossom is so thick that the whole strip along the river smells sweet, and the traffic of day-trippers from Hamburg is thick as well, so go on a weekday if you can. The farmhouses there are the famous half-timbered kind, with decorated brick infill and carved gate beams, and they set the tone for the timber frame theme that runs through the ride.
Westerly wind is the main hazard on this coast. With nothing to break it between the North Sea and the Elbe dyke, a gusty day makes a heavy bike twitchy on the exposed stretches, and the best riding conditions are early on a calm morning in late spring or in September, when the light turns golden and low over the fields. Hamburg is under an hour east if you need to give up, and the bigger fuel stations on the edge of Stade stay open late.