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 265 km round trip from Xanten - roughly 4 h 05 in the saddle. The stops in between: Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South, Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg and back through Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South. It crosses from Germany into Netherlands - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
The Fürstenberg is a low hill on the edge of the Lower Rhine plain, just south of Xanten, and two thousand years ago it was one of the most important military bases in the Roman Empire. Here the Romans built Vetera, a legionary fortress that housed up to two legions and served as a springboard for campaigns into Germania under Augustus. In AD 69 and 70, during the Batavian revolt, Vetera was besieged, starved into surrender and destroyed, and a new fortress was built nearby. The site on the Fürstenberg is part of the Lower German Limes, the Roman frontier along the Rhine from the Alps to the North Sea, which was added to the World Heritage list in 2021. On the ground there is little to see, mostly fields and woods, but the elevated position, with views over the river plain, explains why the Romans chose it.
Read the complete Xanten-Fürstenberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xanten-Fürstenberg is where the day begins. Next is Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South.
Every July, a river of walkers pours through Nijmegen. The Four Days Marches, which have been held since 1909, attract tens of thousands of people who walk thirty, forty or fifty kilometres a day for four days, and the whole city welcomes them with flowers and music. The marchers cross the great bridge over the Waal, which is one of the widest rivers in the country, and the Kops Plateau, a rise on the edge of the old town, is part of the same landscape. In the second half of the twentieth century it was a place of sandpits and playing fields, but an older story lies beneath it.
Read the complete Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South comes up about 63 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg.
A modern fort and a Roman one stand within a couple of kilometres of each other here, and both exist because of the same river. Vechten, on the Kromme Rijn just east of Utrecht, was the Roman fort of Fectio, one of the best-known sites on the Lower Germanic frontier. It lay at a point where the Rhine split, with the branch that became the Vecht heading north, and that made it a perfect depot. Soldiers, grain, and building stone all went through here, and archaeologists have pulled a remarkable amount out of the ground, including altars, bronze statuettes and the debris of a busy harbour.
Read the complete Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 131 km into the recorded legs you reach Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg. Next is back through Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South, late in the day. Next is Xanten-Fürstenberg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xanten-Fürstenberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Xanten-Fürstenberg. That is the ride.
Xanten-Fürstenberg → Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South → Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Bunnik-Vechten | Provincialeweg → back through Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Nijmegen-Kops Plateau | Kopse Hof South → Xanten-Fürstenberg is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.