Uedem-Hochwald | Hochwald 4 and Works along the IJ before Diemerdam
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
354 km
Riding-time estimate
6 h 06
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
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Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Uedem it runs 354 km to Uedem; allow about 6 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: Kleve-Keeken, 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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Uedem-Hochwald | Hochwald 4
Kalkar is where the Hochwald roads lead you if you let them, and Kalkar is full of surprises. It is a small brick town of fourteen thousand on the Lower Rhine plain, and its market square is a model of late medieval civic pride, with a stepped-gable town hall from the fifteenth century facing the church of St Nicolai, where a set of carved wooden altars made in the town's own workshops around 1500 draw art historians from far away. Hochwald 4 itself lies in the forest about seven kilometres from the centre, so you come to the town after the woods.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Uedem-Hochwald | Hochwald 4 is where the day begins. Next is Kleve-Keeken.
2. Kleve-Keeken
Here the Rhine stops being a German river. Just downstream of the village of Keeken, the great river crosses the border into the Netherlands, and a few kilometres further on it divides, with the Waal carrying most of the water west and the Pannerdens Canal leading to the Nederrijn and the IJssel. In Roman times, this was the northern frontier of the empire, the Lower German Limes, and Keeken is one of the sites listed as part of the UNESCO frontier, with traces of Roman military installations along the old river course.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Kleve-Keeken comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tiel Inundation Canal.
3. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 96 km into the recorded legs you reach Tiel Inundation Canal. Next is Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk.
4. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk, about halfway. Next is Works along the IJ before Diemerdam.
5. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 354 km.
Leg by leg
Uedem-Hochwald | Hochwald 4 to Kleve-Keeken
Uedem-Hochwald | Hochwald 4 → Kleve-Keeken is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kleve-Keeken to Tiel Inundation Canal
Kleve-Keeken → Tiel Inundation Canal is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tiel Inundation Canal to Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk
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 to Works along the IJ before Diemerdam
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 to back through Bunnik-Vechten | Marsdijk
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 to back through Tiel Inundation Canal
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 to back through Kleve-Keeken
back through Tiel Inundation Canal → back through Kleve-Keeken is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kleve-Keeken to Uedem-Hochwald | Hochwald 4
back through Kleve-Keeken → Uedem-Hochwald | Hochwald 4 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.