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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 267 km round trip from Lier - roughly 4 h 36 in the saddle. On the way it passes Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal, Wortel, Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout and back through Wortel. It crosses from Belgium into Netherlands - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
This part of the ride is 26 km of Béguinage de Lier → Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal.
Through a gateway off a busy street in Lier, you step into another world. The béguinage is a small walled neighbourhood of narrow cobbled lanes, whitewashed brick houses and a baroque church, where for centuries communities of beguines lived. These were religious women who chose a life of prayer, work and service without taking the permanent vows of nuns, living independently in their own houses but sharing a communal life. The béguinages of Flanders, about a dozen of them, were listed by UNESCO in 1998, and the one in Lier, with its quiet lanes and doorways topped with statues of saints, is one of the most charming.
Read the complete Béguinage de Lier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Lier is where the day begins. Next is Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal.
Rik Van Looy, one of the great Belgian cyclists of the 1950s and 1960s, was known as the Emperor of Herentals, which tells you something about the priorities of this town in the Kempen. Herentals lies on the flat heathland of the province of Antwerp, and in the middle of its market square stands the old town hall, built in the fourteenth century as a cloth hall, a lakenhal, when the town grew rich on wool and weaving. Its belfry is part of the UNESCO listing of belfries of Belgium and France, a symbol of civic pride and of the freedoms that merchants bought from their lords.
Read the complete Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Wortel.
Wortel is a village in the Belgian Kempen, near the Dutch border, and it is the Belgian member of a World Heritage group whose other two parts, Frederiksoord and Veenhuizen, lie in the Netherlands. The story begins in 1818, when a Dutch army officer, Johannes van den Bosch, founded the Society of Benevolence, an organisation with the grand idea of rescuing the urban poor by sending them to work on farms in the countryside. The first free colonies were founded in the Netherlands, at Frederiksoord, and in 1822 the society bought land at Wortel, then part of the same kingdom, and opened a colony there. When Belgium split away in 1830 the colony remained in Belgian territory.
Read the complete Wortel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 60 km into the recorded legs you reach Wortel. Next is Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout.
Nineteen windmills stand in two rows along the canals at Kinderdijk, their sails turning slowly against the wide Dutch sky, and it is one of the most iconic sights in the Netherlands. They were built in the eighteenth century to pump water out of the Alblasserwaard, a low-lying polder between the rivers Lek and Noord, which would otherwise be flooded. Each mill lifted water from a lower canal to a higher one, and from there it was let out into the river. Over time steam, diesel and electric pumping stations took over the job, and the most recent ones still keep the polder dry today. The mill network was listed by UNESCO in 1997.
Read the complete Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout, about halfway. Next is back through Wortel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wortel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wortel sits at 178 km, about halfway. Next is back through Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal comes up about 242 km into the recorded legs. Next is Béguinage de Lier.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Béguinage de Lier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Lier closes the day.
Béguinage de Lier → Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal → Wortel is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wortel → Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout → back through Wortel is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Wortel → back through Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Voormalig Stadhuis / Lakenhal → Béguinage de Lier is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.