Why this ride
A slower scenic corridor linking historic towns and cultural landmarks. It also links naturally to Colonies of Benevolence nearby.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Drenthe Hunebed Route
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 43 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 55 min
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
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.
Access context
Prioritise dikes and rural roads; avoid motorway-heavy routing. Specific flag: traffic.
Seasonal context
Apr-Oct
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Assen
Mention Assen to a motorcyclist anywhere in the world and the answer is the same: the TT. The Dutch TT has been raced here since 1925, first on public roads around the villages south of town and later on the purpose-built TT Circuit, and it is the only venue that has hosted a round of the world championship every season since the series began in 1949. Riders call it the Cathedral, partly for its history and partly because a fast lap through its long, flowing bends feels like a kind of devotion. If your visit falls on a race weekend, the whole province turns into a campsite and every road in Drenthe fills with bikes.
Read the complete Assen write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Assen sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Borger.
2. Borger
Somewhere around five thousand years ago, farmers on this sandy ridge dragged enormous boulders together, laid capstones across them and made a tomb that is still standing. It lies on the edge of Borger, and it is the largest of the Dutch hunebedden: more than twenty metres long, built from stones that weigh tons each, set in a quiet clearing among oaks and pines. You can walk right up to it, run your hand along the granite and peer into the chamber where the dead of the Funnel Beaker culture were laid with their pots and axes.
Read the complete Borger write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Borger comes up 12 km in. Next is Exloo.
3. Exloo
Exloo is a small brink village on the eastern slope of the Hondsrug, the kind of place where the old farmhouses still face a central green shaded by huge oaks, and where a sheep herd with its shepherd is not a tourist display but simply part of the week. It is home to roughly fifteen hundred people and sits between forest to the west and the flat, open peat colonies to the east, so the village marks the edge between two quite different Drenthes. On a quiet morning the only sounds are wood pigeons and the tick of a cooling engine.
Read the complete Exloo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
24 km in you reach Exloo. Next is Emmen.
4. Emmen
Emmen is the big town at the southern end of the Hondsrug, and it has a split personality that makes it more interesting than its suburbs suggest. On one side it is a post-war boomtown: until the middle of the twentieth century it was a small village surrounded by peat bogs, then synthetic fibre factories and new housing turned it into one of the largest municipalities in the north. On the other side, it sits inside some of the oldest landscape in the country, with hunebedden scattered through the woods right on its edge and the Emmerdennen forest a short walk from the centre.
Read the complete Emmen write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Emmen, late in the day.