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 259 km round trip from Groningen - roughly 5 h 20 in the saddle. On the way it passes Colonies of Benevolence, Veenhuizen, Key Planning Decision and back through Key Planning Decision. It crosses from Netherlands into Germany - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Look at Groningen from the Martinitoren and you understand the whole north of the Netherlands in one view: the city is a dense knot of brick and canal, and beyond it the land goes flat and open all the way to the Wadden Sea. The tower, a bit over ninety metres of church spire, has been the landmark for centuries. The Grote Markt below it is a big square that fills with students, since the university dates from 1614 and a large part of the population is under thirty. That makes the evenings livelier than you would expect from the quiet reputation of the province.
Read the complete Groningen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Groningen is where the day begins. Next is Colonies of Benevolence.
In 1818 a former army officer named Johannes van den Bosch had a plan to cure poverty with heathland and a spade. His Maatschappij van Weldadigheid, the Society of Benevolence, bought up wasteland here on the border of Drenthe and Friesland and settled poor families from the cities on small farms, with a strict regime of work and discipline. Frederiksoord and Wilhelminaoord were the first colonies, and Veenhuizen, a little further east, later became a penal colony. UNESCO listed the Colonies of Benevolence in 2021, a rare case of a World Heritage Site that began as a social experiment.
Read the complete Colonies of Benevolence write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Colonies of Benevolence comes up about 32 km into the recorded legs. Next is Veenhuizen.
Veenhuizen does not look like a prison town at first. It looks like an orderly village in the flat green countryside of Drenthe, with long avenues of trees, neat brick buildings, canals and fields. But read the inscriptions on the gables, with mottos like "Werken is zalig", work is blessed, and the history starts to show. In 1818, a philanthropic organisation called the Society of Benevolence, founded by General Johannes van den Bosch, began establishing colonies in the poor, empty peatlands of the northern Netherlands, where poor families from the cities could be resettled and taught to farm. Veenhuizen became a colony for orphans, beggars and vagrants, and over time it turned into a state institution, and then into a prison village.
Read the complete Veenhuizen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 33 km into the recorded legs you reach Veenhuizen. Next is Key Planning Decision.
The name on the map is bureaucratic, but the place is anything but. Key Planning Decision is a translation of the Dutch legal designation used to protect the Wadden Sea, and the spot here sits on the coast near Delfzijl, at the eastern edge of the province of Groningen, where the Dutch Wadden meets the estuary of the Ems. The Wadden Sea is the largest unbroken system of tidal flats in the world, stretching along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, and it was listed by UNESCO in 2009.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Key Planning Decision, about halfway. Next is Key Planning Decision.
Where the Ems river meets the sea near Emden, the land runs out of ideas. East Frisia is flat and wide, laced with dykes, drainage ditches and wind turbines, and the horizon is a ruler line drawn under a very large sky. The label here is an administrative one, a planning decision, so it points to no single monument. What it describes is the landscape around the Dollart bay and the Wadden Sea shore west of Emden, where the sea has repeatedly eaten into the land and been pushed back by people with spades and later with machines.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Key Planning Decision sits at 126 km, about halfway. Next is back through Key Planning Decision.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Key Planning Decision comes up about 165 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Veenhuizen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Veenhuizen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 228 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Veenhuizen. Next is back through Colonies of Benevolence.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Colonies of Benevolence write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Colonies of Benevolence, late in the day. Next is Groningen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Groningen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 259 km.
Groningen → Colonies of Benevolence is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Veenhuizen → Key Planning Decision is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Key Planning Decision → Key Planning Decision is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Key Planning Decision → back through Key Planning Decision is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Key Planning Decision → back through Veenhuizen is 63 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Colonies of Benevolence → Groningen is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.