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.
299 km from Voorschoten to Voorschoten, about 4 h 44 of riding. The stops in between: Fort near Heemstede, Works along the IJ before Diemerdam, Utrecht-Groot Zandveld and Fort along the Pampus. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
39 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
For about 35 km this is Dutch Flower Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Corbulo's canal is one of the oldest engineering works in the Netherlands, and it was dug by soldiers. In AD 47 the general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, commanding the Roman army in Lower Germany, put his men to work cutting a canal between the Rhine and the Meuse, partly to keep them busy and partly to give ships a sheltered route that avoided the open sea, with its storms and raiding Frisians. The Fossa Corbulonis, as it was called, ran through the low country between modern Leiden and the Meuse mouth, and its line is thought to be followed today by the Vliet, a quiet waterway that runs between Leiden and Delft.
Read the complete Corbulo's canal | Starrenburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corbulo's canal | Starrenburg is where the day begins. Next is Fort near Heemstede.
Between Haarlem and the bulb fields of the Dutch coast, near the town of Heemstede and the hamlet of De Glip, lies a squat, grassy fort surrounded by a moat. This is the Fort near Heemstede, built around the turn of the twentieth century as part of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, a ring of forts, dykes and flooding zones around the city, and now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Read the complete Fort near Heemstede write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort near Heemstede comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is Works along the IJ before Diemerdam.
Just east of Amsterdam, where the city's suburbs give way to water and polders, a narrow strip of land runs out along the old shore of the IJ and the IJmeer toward Muiden. The Diemerdam is an old dike, and the works along the IJ before it are part of the Dutch Water Defence Lines, the system of forts, dikes, sluices and inundation fields that the Dutch built over centuries to defend their cities by flooding the land around them. The Defence Line of Amsterdam, a ring of forts around the capital, was listed by UNESCO in 1996 and later joined with the New Dutch Waterline into a single site.
Read the complete Works along the IJ before Diemerdam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Works along the IJ before Diemerdam. 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.
Utrecht-Groot Zandveld, about halfway. 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 sits at 152 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Utrecht-Groot Zandveld comes up about 186 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Works along the IJ before Diemerdam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 220 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam. Next is back through Fort near Heemstede.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort near Heemstede write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort near Heemstede, late in the day. Next is Corbulo's canal | Starrenburg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Corbulo's canal | Starrenburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 299 km.
Corbulo's canal | Starrenburg → Fort near Heemstede is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort near Heemstede → Works along the IJ before Diemerdam is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → Utrecht-Groot Zandveld is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Utrecht-Groot Zandveld → Fort along the Pampus is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort along the Pampus → back through Utrecht-Groot Zandveld is 37 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 Diemerdam is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → back through Fort near Heemstede is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort near Heemstede → Corbulo's canal | Starrenburg is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.