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 281 km round trip from Uitgeest - roughly 4 h 23 in the saddle. The stops in between: Works along the IJ before Durgerdam, Fort near Heemstede, Works along the IJ before Diemerdam and Utrecht-Groot Zandveld. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 37 km this is Dutch Flower Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Forget mountains and passes: the Dutch defended Amsterdam with water. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, the army built a ring of forts around the capital at a distance of roughly fifteen to twenty kilometres, the Stelling van Amsterdam, designed to flood the surrounding polders to a depth too shallow for boats but too deep to wade through. Forty-odd forts, along with dykes, sluices and batteries, formed the ring, and the area north of the city near De Rijp and the Beemster was part of it. The Defence Line of Amsterdam gained World Heritage status in 1996, and in 2021 it was extended to include the older New Dutch Waterline further south, the whole now known as the Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Read the complete Dutch Water Defence Lines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dutch Water Defence Lines 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 32 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort near Heemstede. 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.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam, about halfway. 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 sits at 142 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam comes up about 173 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 207 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fort near Heemstede. 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 Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dutch Water Defence Lines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 281 km.
Dutch Water Defence Lines → Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → Fort near Heemstede is 37 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 → 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 → back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → Dutch Water Defence Lines is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.