There is a certain humour in calling a hill of 169 metres a mountain, and the people of the Lüneburg Heath enjoy it. The Wilseder Berg is the highest point in the whole of north-western Germany's lowlands, a rounded dune-like summit of sand and heather that the last ice age left behind, and the view from the top, across a rolling sea of heath, juniper and distant forest, is wide enough that you stop thinking about the height. The hamlet of Wilsede at its foot is closed to cars, which is how it kept its thatched barns and its little museum of heath life. You can ride to the edge of the reserve, park, and walk in.
What matters for a rider is the web of small roads around the reserve, which connect Egestorf, Bispingen and Schneverdingen. They are quiet, mostly smooth and almost entirely free of hairpins, and the pleasure is in the rhythm: a gentle rise over a heath ridge, a swing through a sandy pine plantation, a village green with an old oak and then open sky again. Do not expect a technical challenge. Do expect cyclists, horse riders and the occasional carriage, and a strong sense of being in a landscape that does not hurry. Sand can blow onto the tarmac at corners and after rain the dark leaf litter under the pines is slippery.
The heath is protected, and it has been for a long time, as one of Germany's first nature reserves, set up in the early 1920s when the old way of grazing was beginning to die out and the open ground was being planted with forest. Heidschnucken sheep still graze it, and they are the reason it looks the way it does. In the Totengrund, a hollow near the hill, the old pastureland is especially fine, and in late summer it glows purple when the heather is in flower. Early in the morning in September, when mist lies in the hollows, it is quieter than the weekend peak. The nearest fuel is in Bispingen or Schneverdingen, the larger of the two, and there are plenty of small cafés and farm shops in between where you can buy heather honey and heath sheep sausage.