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.
367 km from Diemen to Diemen, about 6 h 20 of riding. On the way it passes Fort near Heemstede, Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk, Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout and Béguinage de Hoogstraten. It crosses from Netherlands into Belgium - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 35 km this is Dutch Flower Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 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 Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk.
The Vliet, a calm green waterway running between Leiden and The Hague, looks like any other Dutch canal, lined with reeds, cyclists and the occasional houseboat. But it follows, more or less, the route of one of the oldest canals in Western Europe. In about AD 47, the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo ordered his soldiers to dig a canal linking the Rhine and the Meuse estuaries, so that boats could move supplies along the coast without risking the North Sea. The historian Tacitus says Corbulo did it partly to keep his troops busy. Traces of the Fossa Corbulonis have been found here at Vlietwijk, near Voorschoten, and the site is part of the Lower German Limes World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2021.
Read the complete Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk. Next is Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout.
Nineteen windmills stand in two rows along the canals at Kinderdijk, their sails turning slowly against the wide Dutch sky, and it is one of the most iconic sights in the Netherlands. They were built in the eighteenth century to pump water out of the Alblasserwaard, a low-lying polder between the rivers Lek and Noord, which would otherwise be flooded. Each mill lifted water from a lower canal to a higher one, and from there it was let out into the river. Over time steam, diesel and electric pumping stations took over the job, and the most recent ones still keep the polder dry today. The mill network was listed by UNESCO in 1997.
Read the complete Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout, about halfway. Next is Béguinage de Hoogstraten.
A béguinage is one of the most peaceful places in the Low Countries: a walled enclosure of small houses around a green courtyard and a church, built in the Middle Ages for béguines, women who lived a religious life of prayer and work without taking permanent vows. They could own property, leave if they wished and support themselves by weaving, teaching or nursing, which made the béguinages a unique form of female independence in medieval Europe. The béguinage at Hoogstraten, in the north of Antwerp province near the Dutch border, is one of thirteen Flemish béguinages on the World Heritage list, and it is a quiet, charming place, with whitewashed houses, a baroque church and a garden where time seems to slow.
Read the complete Béguinage de Hoogstraten write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Béguinage de Hoogstraten sits at 184 km, about halfway. Next is back through Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout comes up about 257 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 297 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk. 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, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 367 km.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → Fort near Heemstede is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort near Heemstede → Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk → Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout → Béguinage de Hoogstraten is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Béguinage de Hoogstraten → back through Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Mill Network at Kinderdijk-Elshout → back through Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Corbulo's canal | Vlietwijk → back through Fort near Heemstede is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 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.