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 334 km round trip from Tiel - roughly 5 h 13 in the saddle. It goes by way of Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk, Works along the IJ before Diemerdam, Fort near Heemstede and Works along the IJ before Durgerdam. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 34 km this is Dutch Flower Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
Tiel Inundation Canal is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 45 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 92 km into the recorded legs you reach Works along the IJ before Diemerdam. 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, about halfway. Next is Works along the IJ before Durgerdam.
East of Amsterdam, where the IJ widens into the IJmeer and the city gives way to water and sky, the old dike village of Durgerdam sits on a strip of land between the sea wall and the polders. Its wooden houses, painted in strong colours and leaning on each other along the dike, look out over a lake that was once the Zuiderzee, open to the North Sea until the Afsluitdijk closed it in 1932. The works along the IJ here belong to the Defence Line of Amsterdam, now part of the Dutch Water Defence Lines World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Works along the IJ before Durgerdam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Works along the IJ before Durgerdam sits at 151 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 203 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 238 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam. 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, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 334 km.
Tiel Inundation Canal → Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk → Works along the IJ before Diemerdam is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → Fort near Heemstede is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort near Heemstede → Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → back through Fort near Heemstede is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort near Heemstede → back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → back through Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk → Tiel Inundation Canal is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.