Gravel Culture: GREEN DIVIDE
Posted By Gravel Union
On 22 June 2021
Shimano Gravel Alliance rider Erwin Sikkens wanted to find the longest possible gravel bike route in the Netherlands. In such a small country, could he devise a 300kms gravel route that was both fun to ride and legal?
In my hometown in the Netherlands, I live right on the edge of one of its biggest forests. The Veluwe forest has fascinated me since the day I started living here. Most of the green spaces in the Netherlands are polder meadows – flat grassland areas filled with cows and the occasional windmill. To live next to a forest that stretches almost 100 kms north without anything stopping it, is therefore quite special.
Years ago, I started exploring the forest trails on my touring bike. When my first gravel bike came along, I started creating even better rides, exploring more and more of the trails that criss-crossed the forest. My explorations took me further north and at a certain point I started thinking about creating the ultimate Veluwe ride - a traverse covering the entire length of the forest from south to north and so the Veluwe Divide was born. This route developed over the years into a better and even bigger route and, at a certain point, I’d got it to 175 kms in length. This surely was the biggest forest traverse route in the Netherlands. Or was it?
Quite close to the Veluwe forest is another big forest, the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. The two forests are the biggest in the Netherlands and are only separated by 10 kms of farmland. If you take this little ‘glitch’ for granted, the two forests combined give you an even bigger patch of green than my 175 kms route already covered. And thus, the idea for the ultimate biggest forest traverse route in the Netherlands was born - the 300 kms GREEN DIVIDE!
The ride starts in an area with crisp gravel paths and heather fields, but soon takes you to a slightly hillier part of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug forest. By the way, we Dutch call these teeny tiny hills ‘mountains’ without ever flinching. That’s how dedicated we are when it comes to our hills. In these Heuvelrug mountains, the gravel continues in a crisp fashion.
It is only after the crossing to the Veluwe forest at about km 94, that the surface starts to change. The route really enters the forest now and leads you over every kind of forest path imaginable - broad jeep tracks, concrete cycling paths, crisp gravel roads but also singletrack. Nothing that a gravel bike can’t handle of course!
The ride takes you to all the sweet spots the Veluwe has to offer and despite the lack of true mountains or big views, the route never starts to bore. The forest keeps changing and the occasional village along the route offers nice places to stop for a drink or more.
After 290 kms you finally leave the forest behind. You are at the most northern tip of the forest and for the first time in a lot of kilometers you see something different than just trees. Before riding it, I would have never thought that such a big, almost uninterrupted, forest ride was possible in our tiny country. The GREEN DIVIDE must be without doubt the longest and most beautiful forest route in the Netherlands. It’s not just a gravel route. It’s a new gravel classic.
If you would like to try Erwin’s GREEN DIVIDE gravel route for yourself, you can find all the details here: