Why this ride
462 km from Pattensen to Isernhagen Farster Bauerschaft, about 6 h 54 of riding. The stops in between: Coppenbrügge Ith road, Alfeld and Elze. The climbs: Eschershausen Hils road and Harburger Berge forest.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ith Hils and Leinebergland Switchbacks + Harburger Berge and Lüneburg Connector
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 462 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 54
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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
Elze fuel gate → Marienburg castle view
9 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
- 8 km
German Timber Frame Road Central Section
For 39 km this is German Timber Frame Road Central Section, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 37 km
- Named road
- German Timber Frame Road Central Section
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Hannover south gate
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.
Read the complete Hannover south gate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hannover south is where the day begins. Next is Coppenbrügge Ith road.
2. Coppenbrügge Ith road
The Ith is the sort of ridge that makes a rider look twice at the map. It is a long, narrow limestone wall about twenty kilometres from end to end, rising steeply from the farmland to a crest of nearly four hundred and fifty metres, and it runs northwest to southeast like a great fold in the earth. The slopes are covered with old beech forest, and along the crest are cliffs and rock outcrops that attract climbers, with caves and potholes in the limestone below. The villages at its foot, Coppenbrügge among them, look up to it with a faint air of respect.
Read the complete Coppenbrügge Ith road write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Coppenbrügge Ith road comes up 43 km in. Next is Eschershausen Hils road.
3. Eschershausen Hils road
Eschershausen is a small town at the foot of the Hils, and its main claim to fame is a writer. Wilhelm Raabe, one of the great German novelists of the nineteenth century, was born here in 1831, and his books about small-town life, with their humour and melancholy, are still read, particularly the Chronicle of Sparrow Alley and The Hunger Pastor. A modest museum in the town honours him, and the place has a quiet pride in its son. You do not need to have read a word of his work to enjoy the town, but the connection adds some weight to the plain streets.
Read the complete Eschershausen Hils road write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
This is where the road stops climbing. Next is Alfeld food stop.
4. Alfeld food stop
Alfeld has a secret that surprises many visitors: a factory building that changed the history of architecture. On the edge of the town stands the Fagus Works, a shoe-last factory designed by a young Walter Gropius in 1911, with great sheets of glass wrapped around the corners of the brick structure, so that the building seems to float. It was one of the first buildings to use a curtain wall of glass, and it is a forerunner of the Bauhaus style that Gropius would found in the 1919. The works still produce shoe lasts and are a World Heritage site, with a visitor centre and guided tours that explain how the place worked.
Read the complete Alfeld food stop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Somewhere to get off the bike, 130 km in. Next is Elze.
5. Elze fuel gate
Elze is a modest town on the Leine, between Hannover and Hildesheim, and it exists in a rider's day for one good reason, which is that it has petrol stations. That is not meant as an insult. A small, level-headed Lower Saxon town of nearly ten thousand people, set in the broad river valley with farmland on one side and wooded hills on the other, Elze does what a fuel gate should do, quickly and without drama. Pumps sit along the main roads, a supermarket and a few bakeries are in the centre, and you can be on your way again in ten minutes.
Read the complete Elze 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 Marienburg castle view.
6. Marienburg castle view
The castle of Marienburg looks as if a Hollywood studio had been told to build the perfect German fairy-tale palace, and in a sense it was an act of devotion: King George V of Hanover, who was blind, had it built in the 1850s and 1860s as a birthday present for his wife, Queen Marie, on a forested hill above the Leine valley. The architect, Conrad Wilhelm Hase, packed it with towers, turrets, pointed windows and steep roofs in the neo-Gothic style, and the result is a skyline of such romantic excess that visitors often assume it is medieval.
Read the complete Marienburg castle view write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Marienburg castle view comes up 216 km in. Next is back to Hannover south.
7. back to Hannover south
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hannover south gate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back to Hannover south closes the day. Next is Hannover north edge.
8. Hannover north edge
The northern fringe of Hannover is where the city gives up and the Wedemark begins, and the landmarks that matter are small. Isernhagen and Langenhagen sit side by side, the first a strung-out village-suburb with a great many gardens and horse paddocks, the second a proper town that happens to host the city's airport. The sandy soil is why pine and birch woods start creeping in as you head north.
Read the complete Hannover north 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 Celle.
9. Celle fuel gate
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Next is Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight.
10. Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight
Uelzen's railway station is the most unexpected thing in Lower Saxony. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the Austrian artist who hated straight lines, redesigned it for the Expo 2000 world's fair, and the result is a riot of golden onion domes, wobbly floors, ceramic columns in every colour and trees growing from the roof. Walking through the building is free, and you do not need a train ticket.
Read the complete Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight is where this day stops to eat. Next is Lüneburg food stop.
11. Lüneburg food stop
Lüneburg got rich on salt, and you can still see that in the brick. For centuries brine from under the town was boiled into the white salt that was shipped to Lübeck and used to preserve the herring of the Baltic, and the money from this trade paid for the Gothic town hall, the gabled merchant houses and the old crane by the Ilmenau. The Hanseatic League was good to Lüneburg. The streets are lined with stepped brick gables, many of them leaning a little because of subsidence from the salt mines below, which gives the whole old town a gently drunken look.
Read the complete Lüneburg fuel gate write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
A break here. Next is Harburger Berge forest.
12. Harburger Berge forest
South of Hamburg, on the far bank of the Elbe, a ridge of low, wooded hills rises to a little over a hundred metres, and Hamburgers treat it as their mountains. The Harburger Berge are what is left of a glacial moraine, covered in beech, oak and pine, with patches of heath and sandy soil. The highest point, the Hasselbrack, reaches 116 metres, which makes it the highest natural point in the whole city state of Hamburg, a fact that Hamburgers recite with a mixture of pride and self-mockery.
Read the complete Harburger Berge forest write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Undeloh heath road.
13. Undeloh heath road
Ask a German about Undeloh and he will tell you about the heather. The village lies in the middle of the Lüneburg Heath, one of the largest areas of heathland left in central Europe, and it is the quiet gate to the nature reserve that surrounds the hill of Wilsede. Thatched farmhouses sit under old oaks, there is a small church with a wooden tower, and in the main street horse-drawn carriages wait for tourists, which gives the place the look of a postcard from about 1925. Part of the track beyond the village is closed to motor traffic, so the last kilometres to Wilsede are for walkers, cyclists and the carriages. The bike stays where you leave it.
Read the complete Undeloh heath road write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Undeloh heath road sits at 519 km, late in the day. Next is Back to Hannover.
14. Back to Hannover
North of Hannover, near Langenhagen and Isernhagen, the city turns into a district of villas, horse paddocks and big gardens, and the sky fills with the sound of aircraft. Hannover Airport lies in Langenhagen, and the approach and departure paths pass low over the roads. The suburban landscape is flat, tidy and a little anonymous, but after a long day among hills and forests, it is exactly what is needed for a gentle landing.
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 south gate to Coppenbrügge Ith road
Hannover south gate → Coppenbrügge Ith road is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Coppenbrügge Ith road to Eschershausen Hils road
Coppenbrügge Ith road → Eschershausen Hils road is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eschershausen Hils road to Alfeld food stop
Eschershausen Hils road → Alfeld food stop is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Alfeld food stop to Elze fuel gate
Alfeld food stop → Elze fuel gate is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Elze fuel gate to Marienburg castle view
Elze fuel gate → Marienburg castle view is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Marienburg castle view to back to Hannover south
Marienburg castle view → back to Hannover south is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back to Hannover south to Hannover north edge
back to Hannover south → Hannover north edge is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hannover north edge to Celle fuel gate
Hannover north edge → Celle fuel gate is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Celle fuel gate to Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight
Celle fuel gate → Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight to Lüneburg food stop
Uelzen Hundertwasser station sight → Lüneburg food stop is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lüneburg food stop to Harburger Berge forest
Lüneburg food stop → Harburger Berge forest is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Harburger Berge forest to Undeloh heath road
Harburger Berge forest → Undeloh heath road is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Undeloh heath road to Back to Hannover
Undeloh heath road → Back to Hannover is 118 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.