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 451 km round trip from Utrecht - roughly 6 h 51 in the saddle. The stops in between: Fort along the Pampus, Tiel Inundation Canal, Works along the IJ before Durgerdam and Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Ams. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Utrecht is the middle of the Netherlands in a very literal way, and it feels it: trains from everywhere come through the station, and everything else is arranged around a canal that sits lower than the street. The Oudegracht has wharves and cellars cut into its banks, once warehouses for goods unloaded straight from boats, now cafes with tables at water level. Above it all stands the Dom Tower, a little over a hundred metres of Gothic stone, which you will see from the ring road long before you arrive.
Read the complete Utrecht write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Utrecht is where the day begins. Next is Fort along the Pampus.
Out in the open water of the IJmeer, a few kilometres off the old fortified town of Muiden, a low circular fortress sits on an artificial island. This is Pampus, one of more than forty forts that make up the Defence Line of Amsterdam, a ring of fortifications built around the city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The idea was simple and very Dutch: in case of attack, large areas of land around the city would be flooded to a depth that was too shallow for boats and too deep for soldiers to wade, and the forts would guard the roads, railways and dykes that crossed the flooded zone. Pampus guarded the approach to Amsterdam by water. The line was listed by UNESCO in 1996.
Read the complete Fort along the Pampus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort along the Pampus comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tiel Inundation Canal.
Tiel is a river town on the Waal, the main branch of the Rhine in the Netherlands, in the middle of the Betuwe, a region of orchards, dykes and meadows between the Waal and the Lower Rhine. Just outside the town, a wide, straight channel runs through the fields, crossed by bridges and lined by dykes. This is the Tiel inundation canal, built in the late nineteenth century as part of the New Dutch Waterline, the defensive system of controlled flooding that protected the heart of Holland, and it is now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Read the complete Tiel Inundation Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 125 km into the recorded legs you reach Tiel Inundation Canal. Next is Works along the IJ before Durgerdam.
East of Amsterdam, where the IJ widens into the IJmeer and the city gives way to water and sky, the old dike village of Durgerdam sits on a strip of land between the sea wall and the polders. Its wooden houses, painted in strong colours and leaning on each other along the dike, look out over a lake that was once the Zuiderzee, open to the North Sea until the Afsluitdijk closed it in 1932. The works along the IJ here belong to the Defence Line of Amsterdam, now part of the Dutch Water Defence Lines World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Works along the IJ before Durgerdam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Works along the IJ before Durgerdam, about halfway. Next is Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Ams.
Nobody rides a motorbike into the Amsterdam canal ring for the curves. You come because in the early seventeenth century, the city at the height of its Golden Age planned an extension of startling ambition: three main canals, the Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht, laid out in concentric arcs around the medieval core, lined with tall, narrow merchants' houses with gabled roofs and hoisting beams. Work began in 1613, and the result, a UNESCO site since 2010, is still one of the most admired examples of urban planning in the world.
Read the complete Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Ams write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Ams sits at 216 km, about halfway. Next is back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Works along the IJ before Durgerdam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam comes up about 237 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Tiel Inundation Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tiel Inundation Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 325 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tiel Inundation Canal. Next is back through Fort along the Pampus.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort along the Pampus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort along the Pampus, late in the day. Next is Utrecht.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Utrecht write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 451 km.
Utrecht → Fort along the Pampus is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort along the Pampus → Tiel Inundation Canal is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Tiel Inundation Canal → Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Ams is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seventeenth-Century Canal Ring Area of Ams → back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → back through Tiel Inundation Canal is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tiel Inundation Canal → back through Fort along the Pampus is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Fort along the Pampus → Utrecht is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.