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 Vledder it runs 517 km to Vledder; allow about 9 h 56 of riding. The stops in between: Veenhuizen, Key Planning Decision, National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen and back through Key Planning Decision. It crosses from Netherlands into Germany - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
In 1818, after years of war, famine and poverty, a former general named Johannes van den Bosch founded the Society of Benevolence in the Netherlands, with a radical idea: to take poor families from the cities and give them a new life as farmers in the empty heathlands of the north east. The first colony was established at Frederiksoord, in the south of Drenthe, and others followed at Wilhelminaoord, Willemsoord, Veenhuizen and elsewhere. Each family was given a small house, a plot of land and training in farming, and children were educated in schools, an unusual provision for the time. The Colonies of Benevolence, in the Netherlands and Belgium, were listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord is where the day begins. Next is Veenhuizen.
Veenhuizen does not look like a prison town at first. It looks like an orderly village in the flat green countryside of Drenthe, with long avenues of trees, neat brick buildings, canals and fields. But read the inscriptions on the gables, with mottos like "Werken is zalig", work is blessed, and the history starts to show. In 1818, a philanthropic organisation called the Society of Benevolence, founded by General Johannes van den Bosch, began establishing colonies in the poor, empty peatlands of the northern Netherlands, where poor families from the cities could be resettled and taught to farm. Veenhuizen became a colony for orphans, beggars and vagrants, and over time it turned into a state institution, and then into a prison village.
Read the complete Veenhuizen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Veenhuizen comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Key Planning Decision.
The name on the map is bureaucratic, but the place is anything but. Key Planning Decision is a translation of the Dutch legal designation used to protect the Wadden Sea, and the spot here sits on the coast near Delfzijl, at the eastern edge of the province of Groningen, where the Dutch Wadden meets the estuary of the Ems. The Wadden Sea is the largest unbroken system of tidal flats in the world, stretching along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, and it was listed by UNESCO in 2009.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 131 km into the recorded legs you reach Key Planning Decision. Next is Key Planning Decision.
Where the Ems river meets the sea near Emden, the land runs out of ideas. East Frisia is flat and wide, laced with dykes, drainage ditches and wind turbines, and the horizon is a ruler line drawn under a very large sky. The label here is an administrative one, a planning decision, so it points to no single monument. What it describes is the landscape around the Dollart bay and the Wadden Sea shore west of Emden, where the sea has repeatedly eaten into the land and been pushed back by people with spades and later with machines.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Key Planning Decision, about halfway. Next is National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen.
Behind the dyke at Dornumersiel the land is flatter than a billiard table and nearly as green, and on the other side the sea comes and goes twice a day across a vast expanse of sand and mud. This is the Wadden Sea, the largest system of intertidal flats in the world, stretching along the coasts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. The Lower Saxony section is a national park and part of a World Heritage site, and at low tide you can walk out across the seabed towards the East Frisian islands, ideally with a guide who knows the channels and the tides.
Read the complete National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen sits at 194 km, about halfway. Next is back through Key Planning Decision.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Key Planning Decision comes up about 360 km into the recorded legs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 393 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Key Planning Decision. Next is back through Veenhuizen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Veenhuizen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Veenhuizen, late in the day. Next is Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 517 km.
Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord → Veenhuizen is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Veenhuizen → Key Planning Decision is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Key Planning Decision → Key Planning Decision is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Key Planning Decision → National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen is 102 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
National Park Wadden Sea Niedersachsen → back through Key Planning Decision is 98 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Key Planning Decision → back through Key Planning Decision is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Key Planning Decision → back through Veenhuizen is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Veenhuizen → Frederiksoord-Wilhelminaoord is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.