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 384 km round trip from Bussum - roughly 6 h 37 in the saddle. It goes by way of Woerden-Centrum, Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan, Van Nellefabriek and Béguinage de Hoogstraten. It crosses from Netherlands into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 35 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The Gooi, the area east of Amsterdam around Bussum, Naarden and Hilversum, is one of the few places in the western Netherlands with hills, if you can call low sandy ridges hills. It is a region of heathland, woods and wealthy villages. On the edge of Bussum, close to the fortified town of Naarden, stands Fort Werk IV, a small fortification that was part of the New Dutch Waterline and the Defence Line of Amsterdam, and is now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Read the complete Fort Werk IV write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort Werk IV is where the day begins. Next is Woerden-Centrum.
Woerden is a small Dutch town on the Oude Rijn, the old Rhine, halfway between Utrecht and Leiden, in the middle of the Green Heart of Holland, a landscape of polders, meadows, ditches and cows. Its centre is a compact old town ringed by canals, with a castle, a big church and a windmill on the old ramparts. The Romans were here too: Woerden lies on the line of the Lower German Limes, and the remains of a Roman fort lie beneath the town centre.
Read the complete Woerden-Centrum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Woerden-Centrum comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan.
The Rhine ends in a whimper rather than a bang. After its long journey from the Alps, its old main branch, the Oude Rijn, winds quietly through the flat polders of South Holland past Leiden toward the North Sea, and for the Romans this sluggish waterway was the northern frontier of the empire. At Roomburg, on the edge of Leiden and Leiderdorp, stood the fort of Matilo, guarding the river and the canal that linked it with the Meuse, and today its site is part of the Roomburgerpark, a green space with information points and outlines marking where the fort stood. It belongs to the Lower Germanic Limes, listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan. Next is Van Nellefabriek.
The Van Nelle factory, on the edge of Rotterdam, is one of the most beautiful industrial buildings ever made. Built between 1925 and 1931 for a company that processed coffee, tea and tobacco, it is a long, light building of glass and steel, with curtain walls that let daylight flood into the workspaces. The designers, Johannes Brinkman and Leendert van der Vlugt, created what became an icon of modernist architecture, a factory of light and air for its workers. It was added to the UNESCO list in 2014.
Read the complete Van Nellefabriek write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Van Nellefabriek, about halfway. Next is Béguinage de Hoogstraten.
A béguinage is one of the most peaceful places in the Low Countries: a walled enclosure of small houses around a green courtyard and a church, built in the Middle Ages for béguines, women who lived a religious life of prayer and work without taking permanent vows. They could own property, leave if they wished and support themselves by weaving, teaching or nursing, which made the béguinages a unique form of female independence in medieval Europe. The béguinage at Hoogstraten, in the north of Antwerp province near the Dutch border, is one of thirteen Flemish béguinages on the World Heritage list, and it is a quiet, charming place, with whitewashed houses, a baroque church and a garden where time seems to slow.
Read the complete Béguinage de Hoogstraten write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Hoogstraten sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Van Nellefabriek.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Van Nellefabriek write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Van Nellefabriek comes up about 277 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 312 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan. Next is back through Woerden-Centrum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Woerden-Centrum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Woerden-Centrum, late in the day. Next is Fort Werk IV.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort Werk IV write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 384 km.
Fort Werk IV → Woerden-Centrum is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Woerden-Centrum → Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan → Van Nellefabriek is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Van Nellefabriek → Béguinage de Hoogstraten is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Béguinage de Hoogstraten → back through Van Nellefabriek is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Van Nellefabriek → back through Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan → back through Woerden-Centrum is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Woerden-Centrum → Fort Werk IV is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.