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.
A 215 km round trip from Leiderdorp - roughly 3 h 15 in the saddle. On the way it passes Fort near Heemstede, Works along the IJ before Diemerdam, Droogmakerij de Beemster and back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam. The line favours views over speed.
30 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
For about 35 km this is Dutch Flower Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
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.
Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan is where the day begins. Next is Fort near Heemstede.
Between Haarlem and the bulb fields of the Dutch coast, near the town of Heemstede and the hamlet of De Glip, lies a squat, grassy fort surrounded by a moat. This is the Fort near Heemstede, built around the turn of the twentieth century as part of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, a ring of forts, dykes and flooding zones around the city, and now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Read the complete Fort near Heemstede write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort near Heemstede comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Works along the IJ before Diemerdam. Next is Droogmakerij de Beemster.
In 1612 a lake north of Amsterdam disappeared. Wealthy merchants, flush with money from the Dutch trading boom, financed the draining of the Beemster, and the engineer Jan Adriaenszoon Leeghwater used dozens of windmills to pump the water out into a ring canal. What remained was a polder several metres below sea level, laid out in a perfectly regular grid of roads, canals and fields based on Renaissance ideas of order and proportion. The Beemster was inscribed by UNESCO in 1999 as a masterpiece of creative planning, and from above it looks like a ruled sheet of paper.
Read the complete Droogmakerij de Beemster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Droogmakerij de Beemster, about halfway. Next is back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Works along the IJ before Diemerdam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam sits at 130 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fort near Heemstede.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort near Heemstede write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort near Heemstede comes up about 181 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan closes the day.
Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan → Fort near Heemstede is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort near Heemstede → Works along the IJ before Diemerdam is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → Droogmakerij de Beemster is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Droogmakerij de Beemster → back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → back through Fort near Heemstede is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort near Heemstede → Leiden-Roomburg | Besjeslaan is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.