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.
From IJmuiden it runs 338 km to IJmuiden; allow about 5 h 21 of riding. The stops in between: Works along the IJ before Durgerdam, Utrecht-Groot Zandveld, Tiel Inundation Canal and Elst-Grote Kerk. It keeps close to the shore for long stretches.
The ride follows Dutch Flower Route for 41 km.
At the mouth of the North Sea Canal, where giant locks let ocean-going ships into the waterway that leads to Amsterdam, a round island fort sits in the middle of the harbour. This is Fort IJmuiden, also called Forteiland, built in the 1880s as the westernmost stronghold of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, a ring of forts, dikes and flood fields designed to protect the capital by inundating the land around it. The Defence Line, now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines, is one of the more ingenious military systems ever devised: rather than walls, it relied on water a few decimetres deep, too shallow for boats and too deep for marching.
Read the complete Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Utrecht-Groot Zandveld.
West of Utrecht, where the old city fades into meadows and a newly built suburb called Leidsche Rijn, a flat green belt of polder and ditches runs between the villages of Vleuten, Veldhuizen and De Meern. The low land here was part of a defence system that worked by water, the Dutch Waterline, and the Groot Zandveld label refers to this country.
Read the complete Utrecht-Groot Zandveld write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Utrecht-Groot Zandveld. 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.
Tiel Inundation Canal, about halfway. Next is Elst-Grote Kerk.
Elst is a commuter town in the Betuwe, the flat river island between the Rhine and the Waal, halfway between Arnhem and Nijmegen. At first glance there is nothing remarkable about its big brick church on the market square. The surprise lies underneath it. Excavations in the twentieth century found the remains of two Roman temples beneath the floor, built one after another on the same spot, dedicated to a local god adopted into the Roman world. The site belongs to the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Lower German Limes, inscribed by UNESCO in 2021, and the foundations can be seen in the church cellar when it is open.
Read the complete Elst-Grote Kerk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Elst-Grote Kerk sits at 172 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Tiel Inundation Canal comes up about 207 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Utrecht-Groot Zandveld.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Utrecht-Groot Zandveld write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 254 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Utrecht-Groot Zandveld. 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, late in the day. Next is Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 338 km.
Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden → Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → Utrecht-Groot Zandveld is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Utrecht-Groot Zandveld → Tiel Inundation Canal is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tiel Inundation Canal → Elst-Grote Kerk is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Elst-Grote Kerk → back through Tiel Inundation Canal is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tiel Inundation Canal → back through Utrecht-Groot Zandveld is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Utrecht-Groot Zandveld → back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.