CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
From Diemen it runs 243 km to Diemen; allow about 4 h 04 of riding. It goes by way of Dutch Water Defence Lines, Fort near Heemstede, Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower and back through Fort near Heemstede. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 30 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 Dutch Water Defence Lines.
The Dutch had a clever idea for defending their heartland: instead of building walls, they would drown the approaches. The Dutch Water Defence Lines, a World Heritage site, consist of a long belt of land around Amsterdam and Utrecht that could be flooded deliberately in wartime, with water deep enough to stop soldiers on foot and wagons, but too shallow for boats. Forts, dikes, sluices and pumping stations controlled the water. The New Dutch Waterline, built in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ran south-east of Amsterdam through the area around Maarssen and the Loosdrecht lakes, and it was mobilised during the First and Second World Wars, though aircraft and modern artillery had made it largely obsolete by then.
Read the complete Dutch Water Defence Lines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dutch Water Defence Lines comes up 35 km in. 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.
71 km in you reach Fort near Heemstede. Next is Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower.
Where the old Rhine reached the North Sea, near the modern town of Katwijk, the Romans built a string of forts, and Valkenburg was one of them. The Dutch Valkenburg, a village near Leiden, not to be confused with its namesake in Limburg, was the site of a fort and harbour called Praetorium Agrippinae, a base on the northern frontier of the empire that stood on the south bank of the river. Along this stretch the Rhine formed the border of the Roman province of Lower Germany, and the line of forts, watchtowers and roads along it is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage listing.
Read the complete Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower, 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 sits at 141 km, about halfway. Next is back through Dutch Water Defence Lines.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dutch Water Defence Lines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dutch Water Defence Lines comes up 177 km in. 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.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam closes the day.
Works along the IJ before Diemerdam → Dutch Water Defence Lines is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dutch Water Defence Lines → Fort near Heemstede is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort near Heemstede → Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower → back through Fort near Heemstede is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort near Heemstede → back through Dutch Water Defence Lines is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dutch Water Defence Lines → Works along the IJ before Diemerdam is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.