CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 653 km, Ottensen to Neu Wulmstorf - roughly 10 h 07 in the saddle. On the way it passes Jork orchard roads, Stade old town, Zollenspieker dike stop and Finkenwerder. Rinteln Weser bends is the high point. It keeps to quiet secondary roads.
21 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
For 29 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Some rides begin in a car park, and some begin on a boat. The ferry across the Elbe from the Landungsbrücken to Finkenwerder is one of the better openings to a day on the road, because for the price of a public transport ticket you get a half-hour cruise through the biggest port in Germany. The passenger ferries run out past the great cranes, the dry docks and the container terminals, with huge ships sliding by at what feels like arm's length, and the smell of diesel, salt and wet rope. If you are starting from the other side, the feeling is the same in reverse.
Read the complete Finkenwerder ferry feel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finkenwerder ferry feel is where the day begins. Next is Jork orchard roads.
The roads of the Altes Land are organised by water, and in Jork you can see how. The little river Este runs through the village and out toward the Elbe, and parallel dike roads follow it on both banks, with farms strung along them like beads on a thread. The orchards lie behind the farms in long, narrow strips, and a network of drainage ditches runs between them, each one marked by a footbridge to a field. It is the ordered result of eight centuries of drainage by Dutch settlers, and the pattern has barely changed.
Read the complete Jork orchard roads write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jork orchard roads comes up about 15 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stade old town food.
Stade's old town is built around a harbour, and the harbour is built around a tidal creek, the Schwinge, which loops into the centre and ends in a basin lined with merchants' houses. Brick gables, a wooden treadwheel crane on the quay and cobbles polished smooth by centuries of cartwheels make the Hansehafen look like something from a Dutch painting. In the Middle Ages Stade was one of the main ports on the Elbe, a rival of Hamburg, and its prosperity shows in the old buildings. The place went quiet when the river silted up, and the quiet saved it.
Read the complete Stade old town food write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
A break here. Next is Zollenspieker dike stop.
Zollenspieker is a place where a river crossing has been important for a very long time. The name comes from the old customs post, the Zoll, that stood here to tax traffic crossing the Elbe, and the little ferry that carries cars, bikes and walkers across to Hoopte on the south bank still runs, a short, unhurried journey of a few minutes. A half-timbered inn stands beside the landing stage, one of the oldest in the region, with a thatched roof, low beams and a terrace facing the river. It is a place where Hamburgers come for coffee and cake on fine Sundays.
Read the complete Zollenspieker dike stop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zollenspieker dike stop, early in the day. Next is Back to Finkenwerder.
Finkenwerder is an island that is not quite an island, a long, low spit of land in the Elbe that belongs to Hamburg and feels like a village. For centuries its people were fishermen, who sailed out into the North Sea in their sturdy boats and returned to a row of brick houses with thatched roofs, and the old quarter still has a sleepy, nautical atmosphere. The writer Johann Kinau, who published under the name Gorch Fock and wrote tales of the sea, was born here, and the famous German sail-training ship was named after him.
Read the complete Finkenwerder write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Back to Finkenwerder. That is the ride. Next is Hamburg south-west edge.
Hamburg does not end so much as thin out, and this is where it happens. Out here on the south-west edge, between the Elbe and the heath, the port's industrial yards give way to a landscape of commuter villages, motorway interchanges, fields and low wooded hills, and the town of Neu Wulmstorf, with about twenty thousand people, is the nearest place of any size. Behind you lies Harburg, once a separate town on the south bank of the river, and ahead is the flat green country of Lower Saxony.
Read the complete Hamburg south-west edge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The day opens at Hamburg south-west edge. Next is Rotenburg.
Rotenburg an der Wümme is a quiet district town of about twenty-two thousand people on the river Wümme, halfway between Hamburg and Bremen, and a convenient place to fill the tank on the way south. The landscape here is typical of northern Lower Saxony: flat or gently rolling, with heath and pine, wet meadows and the dark, boggy ground of the moors. Everything is green, and the sky is large.
Read the complete Rotenburg fuel gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fill up here — 283 km left and no pump marked after this. Next is Nienburg river road.
With some thirty thousand people, it is a proper town with fuel, supermarkets and cafes, and with a pleasant, slightly sleepy old centre of brick and half-timber. The river here is broad and slow, lined with willows and meadows, and it makes a good place for a stop and a flask of coffee.
Read the complete Nienburg river road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nienburg river road, about halfway. Next is Rinteln Weser bends.
Rinteln is a small Weser town of about twenty-eight thousand people, set where the river swings in a series of wide bends between the hills of the Weserbergland. The old town is full of half-timbered houses and handsome buildings in the Weser Renaissance style, a distinctive form of gables, bay windows and decorated stonework that spread along the river in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
Read the complete Rinteln Weser bends write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The high point of this section. Next is Hameln food stop.
Everyone knows the story, and Hameln has not tried to hide it. According to the legend, in 1284 the town was overrun by rats, and a stranger in colourful clothes offered to rid it of them in return for payment. He played his pipe, the rats followed him into the Weser and drowned, and the town refused to pay. So he played again, and this time the town's children followed him out of the gate and were never seen again. The Brothers Grimm wrote it down, Robert Browning wrote a poem, and the Pied Piper became one of the best-known figures in European folklore. The historical record does record some tragedy in 1284, though what actually happened is still a mystery.
Read the complete Hameln food stop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hameln food stop is where this day stops to eat. Next is Celle return.
Celle is a town that looks like it has been preserved in a jar. More than four hundred half-timbered houses, with carved beams, painted inscriptions and crooked upper storeys, line the streets of the old centre, and the whole place has survived with very little damage because it escaped bombing in the Second World War. About seventy-one thousand people live here, on the banks of the Aller, at the southern edge of the Luneburg Heath.
Read the complete Celle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
A break here. Next is Back to Hamburg.
Hamburg's high ground is not very high. The highest point in the whole city, a wooded hill called the Hasselbrack, reaches only about 116 metres, and it lies in the Harburg Hills, just a few kilometres from this point on the southern edge of the city. Still, in a country as flat as north Germany, those hills are a real change of scene, and the road that runs through them is one of the best for riders on the south bank of the Elbe.
Read the complete Hamburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 622 km.
Finkenwerder ferry feel → Jork orchard roads is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jork orchard roads → Stade old town food is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stade old town food → Zollenspieker dike stop is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Zollenspieker dike stop → Back to Finkenwerder is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Finkenwerder → Hamburg south-west edge is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hamburg south-west edge → Rotenburg fuel gate is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rotenburg fuel gate → Nienburg river road is 59 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Nienburg river road → Rinteln Weser bends is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Rinteln Weser bends → Hameln food stop is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hameln food stop → Celle return reset is 105 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Celle return reset → Back to Hamburg is 123 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.