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.
From Diemen it runs 259 km to Diemen; allow about 4 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of Droogmakerij de Beemster, Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden, Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower and back through Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Dutch Flower Route for 41 km.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden.
At the mouth of the North Sea Canal, where giant locks let ocean-going ships into the waterway that leads to Amsterdam, a round island fort sits in the middle of the harbour. This is Fort IJmuiden, also called Forteiland, built in the 1880s as the westernmost stronghold of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, a ring of forts, dikes and flood fields designed to protect the capital by inundating the land around it. The Defence Line, now part of the UNESCO-listed Dutch Water Defence Lines, is one of the more ingenious military systems ever devised: rather than walls, it relied on water a few decimetres deep, too shallow for boats and too deep for marching.
Read the complete Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden. 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 Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden sits at 141 km, about halfway. Next is back through Droogmakerij de Beemster.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Droogmakerij de Beemster write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Droogmakerij de Beemster comes up about 226 km into the recorded legs. Next is Works along the IJ before Durgerdam.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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 closes the day.
Works along the IJ before Durgerdam → Droogmakerij de Beemster is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Droogmakerij de Beemster → Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden → Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Frontiers of the Roman Empire - The Lower → back through Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Coastal Fort near Ijmuiden → back through Droogmakerij de Beemster is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Droogmakerij de Beemster → Works along the IJ before Durgerdam is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.