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 330 km round trip from Kalkar - roughly 5 h 41 in the saddle. It goes by way of Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North, Tiel Inundation Canal, Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk and Works along the IJ before Diemerdam. It crosses from Germany into Netherlands - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Near the Dutch border, where the Rhine flows through wide meadows and dyked farmland, the small town of Kalkar holds a surprising amount of history. The Kalkarberg is a low rise near Altkalkar, and on it stood the Roman fort of Burginatium, one of the posts along the Lower German Limes, now part of the UNESCO-listed Frontiers of the Roman Empire. The rise would have given a valuable view over the river plain, and the fort controlled the road between Xanten and Nijmegen. Today it is fields and trees, but the shape of the land still hints at the old fortification.
Read the complete Kalkar-Kalkarberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kalkar-Kalkarberg is where the day begins. Next is Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North.
Just east of Nijmegen, where the Netherlands suddenly remembers how to make hills, a wooded slope near the village of Berg en Dal hides the remains of a Roman industrial site. De Holdeurn was where the Tenth Legion, Legio X Gemina, stationed at Nijmegen in the late first and early second centuries, made roof tiles, bricks and pottery, stamped with the legion's name and shipped all over the region. The kilns and workshops have been excavated, and the site is one of the many places that make up the Frontiers of the Roman Empire – the Lower German Limes, listed by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tiel Inundation Canal.
Tiel is a river town on the Waal, the main branch of the Rhine in the Netherlands, in the middle of the Betuwe, a region of orchards, dykes and meadows between the Waal and the Lower Rhine. Just outside the town, a wide, straight channel runs through the fields, crossed by bridges and lined by dykes. This is the Tiel inundation canal, built in the late nineteenth century as part of the New Dutch Waterline, the defensive system of controlled flooding that protected the heart of Holland, and it is now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Read the complete Tiel Inundation Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 85 km into the recorded legs you reach Tiel Inundation Canal. Next is Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk.
Two layers of Dutch defence history sit on top of each other just south-east of Utrecht. Around two thousand years ago, the Romans built a fort here called Fectio, at the point where a branch of the Rhine met the Vecht, with a harbour for the fleet that patrolled the river frontier. Its remains lie buried in the fields near Vechten and are part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Lower German Limes, a World Heritage site since 2021. Close by stands Fort bij Vechten, a nineteenth-century fortress of the New Dutch Waterline, a defensive system that could flood large areas of land to stop an invading army. That system is itself part of the UNESCO site of the Dutch Water Defence Lines. The fort now houses a museum explaining how the waterline worked, and how a country below sea level turned water into a weapon.
Read the complete Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk, about halfway. 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 sits at 165 km, about halfway. Next is back through Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk comes up about 210 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Tiel Inundation Canal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tiel Inundation Canal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 245 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tiel Inundation Canal. Next is back through Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North, late in the day. Next is Kalkar-Kalkarberg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kalkar-Kalkarberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 330 km.
Kalkar-Kalkarberg → Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North → Tiel Inundation Canal is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tiel Inundation Canal → Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk → Works along the IJ before Diemerdam is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → back through Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk → back through Tiel Inundation Canal is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tiel Inundation Canal → back through Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Berg en Dal-De Holdeurn | North → Kalkar-Kalkarberg is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.