Why this ride
From Groß Munzel it runs 429 km to Laatzen; allow about 6 h 23 of riding. The stops in between: Rinteln, Extertal hill roads and Lemgo old town. The climbs: Barntrup ridge and Oker valley bends. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Extertal and Lippe Hill Roads + Oker Valley and Clausthal Mountain Roads
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 429 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 23
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Extertal hill roads → Lemgo old town
27 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.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 25 km
German Fairy Tale Route
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 31 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 29 km
- Named road
- German Fairy Tale Route
German Timber Frame Road Central Section
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 22 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go — slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 20 km
- Named road
- German Timber Frame Road Central Section
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Hannover west escape
The Deister is a long, wooded ridge that rises abruptly from the flat country west of Hannover, and this starting point lies at its northern foot, in the farmland between Groß Munzel and Großgoltern. Barsinghausen, a town of fourteen thousand about seven kilometres away, is the gateway to the hills. Coal was mined in the Deister until 1957, and traces of that industry survive in the old shafts and railway embankments that you find in the forest.
Read the complete Hannover west escape write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hannover west escape is where the day begins. Next is Rinteln.
2. Rinteln fuel gate
Rinteln lies on the Weser, in the hills of Lower Saxony where the river cuts through a gap in the wooded ridges, and it has the look of a town that was prosperous in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was then left in peace. Half-timbered houses with carved beams line the old market square, and the town hall and the Nikolai church stand among them. The architecture belongs to what is known as the Weser Renaissance, a decorative style with gables, bay windows and carved ornament that spread along the river in that period.
Read the complete Rinteln fuel gate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Rinteln is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Extertal hill roads.
3. Extertal hill roads
South of Rinteln the land rises into the Lippe hills, and the Exter valley runs up through them in a quiet, winding way. The area has a name among riders for its relaxed and flowing roads, and it is easy to see why: the lanes follow the folds of the land, climbing gently through beech and oak woods, dropping to small streams and passing through villages of half-timbered houses with red tiled roofs. It is a landscape on a human scale, with no big peaks or dramatic views, just mile after mile of green.
Read the complete Extertal hill roads write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 64 km into the recorded legs you reach Extertal hill roads. Next is Lemgo old town.
4. Lemgo old town
Lemgo is one of those German towns where the old centre survived intact, a mass of half-timbered and stone gabled houses in the Weser Renaissance style, grouped around a market place and a clutch of churches. The town of about forty-two thousand people lies in the Lippe region in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, on the edge of the Teutoburg Forest, and was once a member of the Hanseatic League, which explains the wealth of building from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Read the complete Lemgo old-town stop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lemgo old town, early in the day. Next is Barntrup ridge.
5. Barntrup ridge
Barntrup is a small town in the Lippe uplands, and the ridge above it gives one of the pleasanter views in this part of Germany. The land here is a series of long, wooded ridges separated by wide, farmed valleys, and the road along the top gives views over the patchwork of fields, with villages scattered between. It is a landscape of modest scale, but with a calm beauty that grows on you the longer you ride.
Read the complete Barntrup ridge write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Barntrup ridge tops the climb. Next is Hameln coffee return.
6. Hameln coffee return
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hameln coffee return is where this day stops to eat. Next is Back to Hannover.
7. Back to Hannover
Coming back into Hannover from the west, the city rises out of flat farmland a little too modestly, with the green mass of the Deister ridge behind you and the tower of a power station somewhere ahead. Hannover does not shout. It is a city of half a million people that was flattened by bombing in the Second World War and rebuilt with more sense than glamour, and the best of it is tucked into corners you have to know about. The Maschsee, a big artificial lake dug by hand in the 1930s as a work programme, is the place the locals walk, run and sail on summer evenings.
Read the complete Hannover write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back to Hannover closes the day. Next is Hannover south-east edge.
8. Hannover south-east edge
Laatzen is where Hannover's southern edge turns into the exhibition halls, a town of forty thousand, with the great fair grounds a few minutes away. The Expo of the year 2000 was held on this side of the city, and the vast halls and the odd, slightly futuristic pavilions that survive give the district a strange, half-empty feel on a quiet morning. It is a spot to meet and set off, not a place to linger.
Read the complete Hannover south-east edge write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
You start here, at road level. Next is Salzgitter.
9. Salzgitter fuel gate
Salzgitter is not a town for postcards, and that is exactly why it makes a good fuel gate. It was built around steel. In 1937 the Nazi government founded a huge ironworks here to exploit local iron ore, and the city that grew around it was a collection of villages merged into one, with a sprawling industrial landscape. Today the steelworks still operates, and the skyline is a mix of chimneys, rail yards and housing estates, softened by green belts and lakes.
Read the complete Salzgitter fuel gate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Next is Goslar old road.
10. Goslar old road
Goslar is one of those towns that makes you stop the engine and simply look. It sits on the northern edge of the Harz mountains in Lower Saxony, and it was for centuries an imperial city, with a palace where German emperors held court in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Kaiserpfalz, a huge Romanesque hall restored in the nineteenth century, still stands on the hill, with murals showing scenes of imperial history. Around it the old town is a maze of cobbled lanes, crooked half-timbered houses and slate-roofed gables, so well preserved that UNESCO listed it in 1992.
Read the complete Goslar old road write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Goslar old road comes up about 310 km into the recorded legs. Next is Oker valley bends.
11. Oker valley bends
The Oker is the river that cuts the Harz in two, and the road that follows it from Goslar toward Altenau is among the best in northern Germany. The valley is narrow and steep, with dark spruce forest on the slopes and bare granite cliffs breaking through, and the road keeps close company with the water, bending with every meander. The corners come one after another, tight enough to keep you busy and open enough to enjoy, and the surface is generally good.
Read the complete Oker valley bends write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Oker valley bends is the summit of this stretch. Next is Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point.
12. Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point
Clausthal-Zellerfeld sits on a plateau at around six hundred metres in the Upper Harz, and the town has a surprise at its centre: the Marktkirche, a huge church built entirely of wood, said to be the largest wooden church in Germany. It was built in the seventeenth century by a mining community that was rich enough to afford it and short of stone, and it is a fine sight, with its dark timber walls and a roof of slate. Inside it is painted and carved with a quiet grandeur.
Read the complete Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point, late in the day. Next is Seesen food stop.
13. Seesen food stop
Seesen sits at the western edge of the Harz, where the hills begin to rise out of the plain, and it is a handy town for a stop with a little history tucked inside. In the early nineteenth century it was the home of the Jacobson School, founded by a Jewish banker and reformer named Israel Jacobson, one of the first schools to bring Jewish and Christian pupils together and to push for the reform of Jewish worship, and a temple he built beside it became a model for the first Reform synagogues. The temple was destroyed in 1938, and a memorial now marks the site.
Read the complete Seesen food stop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Food at 419 km, roughly 9 hours into the riding.
14. Back to Hannover
Hannover is not the first name that comes to mind when riders talk about great destinations, and it would probably say that is fine. It is a big, calm, practical city of half a million people on the northern edge of the German hills, where the flat North German Plain begins to roll up toward the Deister and the Weser Uplands.
Read the complete Hannover write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Back to Hannover. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Hannover west escape to Rinteln fuel gate
Hannover west escape → Rinteln fuel gate is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rinteln fuel gate to Extertal hill roads
Rinteln fuel gate → Extertal hill roads is 15 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Extertal hill roads to Lemgo old town
Extertal hill roads → Lemgo old town is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lemgo old town to Barntrup ridge
Lemgo old town → Barntrup ridge is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Barntrup ridge to Hameln coffee return
Barntrup ridge → Hameln coffee return is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hameln coffee return to Back to Hannover
Hameln coffee return → Back to Hannover is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Hannover to Hannover south-east edge
Back to Hannover → Hannover south-east edge is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hannover south-east edge to Salzgitter fuel gate
Hannover south-east edge → Salzgitter fuel gate is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Salzgitter fuel gate to Goslar old road
Salzgitter fuel gate → Goslar old road is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Goslar old road to Oker valley bends
Goslar old road → Oker valley bends is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oker valley bends to Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point
Oker valley bends → Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point to Seesen food stop
Clausthal-Zellerfeld high point → Seesen food stop is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seesen food stop to Back to Hannover
Seesen food stop → Back to Hannover is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.