Kyffhäuser Hairpin Expedition · short arc

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Hannover south-east gate

   This is the flat, fertile ground south-east of Hannover, where the city's suburbs give way to the Hildesheimer Börde, one of the richest farming landscapes in Germany. The soil is loess, a fine, wind-blown dust laid down in the ice age, and it is so deep and so good that sugar beet, wheat and rapeseed grow in enormous fields stretching to the horizon. Sarstedt, a town of nearly nineteen thousand people on the Innerste river, is the largest place nearby, with Giesen and Harsum close by, and the villages are neat and prosperous with brick houses and big farms.

   Read the complete Hannover south-east gate write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Hannover south-east is where the day begins. Next is Goslar.

2. 2. Goslar fuel gate

   Goslar is the town where Harz mining became legend. For more than a thousand years, miners dug silver, lead, copper and zinc from the Rammelsberg hill just outside the town, and the wealth built an imperial city. Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire held court at the Kaiserpfalz, the great palace hall beside the old town, which was built in the eleventh century and rebuilt in the nineteenth. The Rammelsberg mine closed in 1988, after a thousand years of work, and UNESCO listed the mine and the old town in 1992, later adding the water management system of the Upper Harz.

   Read the complete Goslar write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Goslar is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Stolberg Harz old road.

3. 3. Stolberg Harz old road

   Stolberg is a tiny half-timbered town of about fourteen hundred people in a narrow valley on the southern edge of the Harz, so well preserved that people often call it a museum in itself, with houses leaning against each other along the main street and a castle on the hill above. It was the seat of the counts of Stolberg, whose line ran for centuries, and the birthplace of Thomas Müntzer, the preacher and radical leader of the Peasants' War of 1525, who was executed after the battle of Frankenhausen not far to the south.

   Read the complete Stolberg Harz old road write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 146 km into the recorded legs you reach Stolberg Harz old road. Next is Kyffhäuser serpentines.

4. 4. Kyffhäuser serpentines

   Kyffhäuser is a modest range of wooded hills on the border of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, just rising out of the Goldene Aue plain, and it is soaked in legend. The hills are low, but they stand alone above the flat plain, so the views from the top are remarkable.

   Read the complete Kyffhäuser serpentines write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The high point of this section. Next is Nordhausen reset stop.

5. 5. Nordhausen reset stop

   Nordhausen is a town of some forty-four thousand people on the southern edge of the Harz, the biggest place for a wide area, and it carries a heavy history that deserves a pause. In the last years of the Second World War the Nazis built a huge underground factory in the nearby Kohnstein hill, where V-2 rockets were assembled by prisoners from the Mittelbau-Dora camp, and thousands died of hunger, disease and brutality. The Dora memorial and museum at the site is a serious, sober place, open to the public. In April 1945 the town itself was destroyed in air raids, and most of the old centre was lost.

   Read the complete Nordhausen reset stop write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Nordhausen reset stop sits at 233 km, late in the day. Next is Osterode food stop.

6. 6. Osterode food stop

   Osterode am Harz lies on the south-western edge of the Harz mountains, at the point where the hills flatten out into the fields of southern Lower Saxony. It is a practical, friendly town of about twenty thousand people, with fuel, supermarkets and several places to eat, a sensible spot to refuel the bike and yourself.

   Read the complete Osterode food stop write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 257 km.