CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
From Muiden it runs 247 km to Muiden; allow about 4 h 12 of riding. It goes by way of Dutch Water Defence Lines, Fort near Heemstede, Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower and back through Fort near Heemstede. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 30 km this is Dutch Flower Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Dutch Water Defence Lines.
The Dutch had a clever idea for defending their heartland: instead of building walls, they would drown the approaches. The Dutch Water Defence Lines, a World Heritage site, consist of a long belt of land around Amsterdam and Utrecht that could be flooded deliberately in wartime, with water deep enough to stop soldiers on foot and wagons, but too shallow for boats. Forts, dikes, sluices and pumping stations controlled the water. The New Dutch Waterline, built in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ran south-east of Amsterdam through the area around Maarssen and the Loosdrecht lakes, and it was mobilised during the First and Second World Wars, though aircraft and modern artillery had made it largely obsolete by then.
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 comes up 36 km in. 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.
72 km in you reach Fort near Heemstede. Next is Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower.
Where the old Rhine reached the North Sea, near the modern town of Katwijk, the Romans built a string of forts, and Valkenburg was one of them. The Dutch Valkenburg, a village near Leiden, not to be confused with its namesake in Limburg, was the site of a fort and harbour called Praetorium Agrippinae, a base on the northern frontier of the empire that stood on the south bank of the river. Along this stretch the Rhine formed the border of the Roman province of Lower Germany, and the line of forts, watchtowers and roads along it is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage listing.
Read the complete Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower, about halfway. 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 sits at 145 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Dutch Water Defence Lines comes up 181 km in. Next is Fort along the Pampus.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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 closes the day.
Fort along the Pampus → Dutch Water Defence Lines is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dutch Water Defence Lines → Fort near Heemstede is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort near Heemstede → Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower → back through Fort near Heemstede is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort near Heemstede → back through Dutch Water Defence Lines is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dutch Water Defence Lines → Fort along the Pampus is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.