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.
A 374 km round trip from Hollum - roughly 7 h 16 in the saddle. The stops in between: Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal, Schokland and Surroundings and back through Schokland and Surroundings. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
It is hard to point at a spot, because there is no spot: the sea retreats twice a day, leaving miles of glistening mud, and then returns, often faster than you expect. The Wadden Sea is a UNESCO site shared by the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, and it is the largest unbroken system of intertidal sand and mud flats in the world.
Read the complete Key Planning Decision write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Key Planning Decision is where the day begins. Next is Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker.
Eise Eisinga was a wool comber in the Frisian town of Franeker, not a professional astronomer, and in the 1770s he built the solar system on his living-room ceiling. The story goes that in 1774 a local pastor predicted that the planets would align and bring disaster, and the town panicked. Eisinga, who knew some mathematics, wanted to show the real movements, and over the next seven years he built a scale model of the planets, with a clockwork mechanism hidden in the attic that still moves them today. It is generally described as the oldest working planetarium in the world, and it was listed by UNESCO in 2023.
Read the complete Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker comes up 37 km in. Next is Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal, 38 km on.
The Netherlands has always had to fight water, and Friesland's battle was won in part by a single building on the shore of the IJsselmeer near Lemmer. The Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal, a steam pumping station opened in 1920, is the largest steam-driven pumping station ever built that is still in working order, and it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998. When the water in Friesland's canals and lakes rises too high, the old steam engines can still be fired up to pump it out.
Read the complete Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
75 km in you reach Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal. Next is Schokland and Surroundings.
Schokland was once an island in the Zuiderzee, a long, narrow strip of peat and clay surrounded by an inland sea that constantly threatened to swallow it. For centuries, its inhabitants lived on raised mounds and fought a losing battle against the water, as storms ate away at the island's edges. By the mid-nineteenth century, life had become so precarious that in 1859 the Dutch government ordered the island to be evacuated. Then, in the twentieth century, the Dutch did something extraordinary: they enclosed the Zuiderzee with a dam, the Afsluitdijk, completed in 1932, and drained large parts of it to create new land. The Noordoostpolder, drained in 1942, swallowed Schokland, and the former island now rises slightly above the surrounding fields, a long green ridge in a flat landscape of farmland. In 1995, Schokland became the first Dutch site to be listed by UNESCO, as a symbol of the Netherlands' heroic struggle against the water.
Read the complete Schokland and Surroundings write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schokland and Surroundings, about halfway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal sits at 150 km, about halfway. Next is back through Schokland and Surroundings.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schokland and Surroundings write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Schokland and Surroundings comes up 187 km in. Next is back through Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal, 37 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
224 km in you reach back through Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal. Next is back through Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 374 km.
Key Planning Decision → Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker → Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal → Schokland and Surroundings is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schokland and Surroundings → Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal → back through Schokland and Surroundings is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Schokland and Surroundings → back through Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ir.D.F. Woudagemaal → back through Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker → Key Planning Decision is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.