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.
319 km from Kleve to Kleve, about 5 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Arnhem-Meinerswijk, 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. The line favours views over speed.
Kleve sits on the lower Rhine, a few kilometres from the Dutch border, in a landscape so flat that the one low hill outside the town counts as an event. West of it, the Reichswald is a big, dark forest of pine and beech, one of the largest wooded areas in this part of North Rhine-Westphalia, and for a rider coming from the Ruhr it feels like an exhale. The forest roads are straight and shaded, and the surrounding villages, Kranenburg among them, are neat, brick-built and utterly peaceful.
Read the complete Kleve-Reichswald | West write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kleve-Reichswald | West is where the day begins. Next is Arnhem-Meinerswijk.
The Rhine has always been a frontier here. In Roman times, the Lower Rhine marked the northern edge of the empire, and the Romans built a chain of forts, watchtowers and roads along its banks to guard it. At Meinerswijk, on the southern bank of the river opposite Arnhem, the remains of one of those forts lie buried in the floodplain. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Lower German Limes, listed by UNESCO in 2021. There is little to see on the surface, but the floodplain itself, a wide expanse of meadows, ponds and willows, is a pleasant place to walk, and markers explain the history.
Read the complete Arnhem-Meinerswijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Arnhem-Meinerswijk comes up about 34 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 80 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 160 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 205 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 240 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Tiel Inundation Canal. Next is back through Arnhem-Meinerswijk.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Arnhem-Meinerswijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Arnhem-Meinerswijk, late in the day. Next is Kleve-Reichswald | West.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kleve-Reichswald | West write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 319 km.
Kleve-Reichswald | West → Arnhem-Meinerswijk is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Arnhem-Meinerswijk → Tiel Inundation Canal is 46 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 Arnhem-Meinerswijk is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Arnhem-Meinerswijk → Kleve-Reichswald | West is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.