Amsterdam Coffeeshop Directory Forums

Black Jack (De Poort, Enkhuizen, €10.50/g) – This stuff rode in on a wave of anxiety. For a few minutes, I felt a little nauseous.

The uglier vibes left my viewfinder in a hurry. I became aware of a stony beret attached to my head. From here on in the stone was kind –– confident, comforting, stony and action-seeking. I walked all over Enkhuizen on this pot. What a great introduction to this stunning little town.

As I walked away from the coffeeshop, I was passed by a woman riding a bike with her daughter sitting on the back. It was late twilight. The street was empty and quiet except for the clatter of the bike and the voice of the girl singing.

Thanks for the update. I'm getting really "geared op" for my may/june visit. quik- any way that you could document your routes on a map, so we can get a visual on your journey?

quiky wrote:The street was empty and quiet except for the clatter of the bike and the voice of the girl singing.

In the old pre-digital days, I think that this would have been called a Kokak moment.
enjoy!

EasilySuede: The grey dots indicate portions of the route where we/I portaged by rail or ferry. The black dots indicate the bike route.

Fantastic quicky, that's a great help for them who wants biking around NL

Colino, EasilySuede: I'm glad -- and surprised -- that you find the map interesting.

It's so easy to make your own route. You just want to make sure that the towns you visit are a) on train routes and b) have coffeeshops. If a leg of the journey is 0-50km, you can probably bike it in one day. If it's longer than that, you'll just end up riding your bike until you're tired and then portaging the bike by rail from the nearest town with a train station. Remember, you need to buy train tickets for both you *and* your bike. They are separate tickets. The ticket for the bike will cost just about as much as a ticket for yourself.

You will also need panniers, rain gear, a patch kit, an adjustable wrench, a pump and Dutch bike maps covering the whole route.

You need the bike maps, people! They show all the bike routes. They show the numbered knooppunts that save your ass when you're stoned and lost. You can pick these maps up on the ground in the Netherlands at an ANWB store (anwb.nl/contact ...) or buy them online from Omnimaps (omnimap.com/...). I have obtained them from both sources.

Bike City rents panniers, BTW. I ended up buying my own. I find it's nice to use simple grocery-style panniers because they allow you to drop your backpack right into them. Just make sure the pannier is big enough to accommodate your bag. Travel light!

quiky wrote:Colino, EasilySuede: I'm glad -- and surprised -- that you find the map interesting.

It's so easy to make your own route. You just want to make sure that the towns you visit are a) on train routes and b) have coffeeshops. If a leg of the journey is 0-50km, you can probably bike it in one day. If it's longer than that, you'll just end up riding your bike until you're tired and then portaging the bike by rail from the nearest town with a train station. Remember, you need to buy train tickets for both you *and* your bike. They are separate tickets. The ticket for the bike will cost just about as much as a ticket for yourself.

You will also need panniers, rain gear, a patch kit, an adjustable wrench, a pump and Dutch bike maps covering the whole route.

You need the bike maps, people! They show all the bike routes. They show the numbered knooppunts that save your ass when you're stoned and lost. You can pick these maps up on the ground in the Netherlands at an ANWB store (anwb.nl/contact ...) or buy them online from Omnimaps (omnimap.com/...). I have obtained them from both sources.

Bike City rents panniers, BTW. I ended up buying my own. I find it's nice to use simple grocery-style panniers because they allow you to drop your backpack right into them. Just make sure the pannier is big enough to accommodate your bag. Travel light!

again, thanks a lot. this summer I didn't have a map and only followed the directions on the streets adn it was quite hard being fucking stoned. these informations will be useful in the future

For my last trip I had this program on my Smartphone which I found useful http://www.routeyou.com/user/myplanner/ ... planner.en

I love the map with the route on it, I must learn how to do that so I can highlight my trips. I did a similar ride to you, Amsterdam to Groningen and back. A bit different routes to you but I visited Einkhuzen and Harlingen on route. Totally fell in love with Harlingen, and the North of Holland generally. Groningen is a super place and one to which I will return.

2 wheels = good

Q- thank you very much for making that map. I hope that it wasn't too much trouble. Your town/CS/bud descriptions are great, it's just that I wanted to see how they fit into the bigger scheme of your trip. Well done! And what a great reference-quality thread you've started.

SG- thanks for the link to the route planner!

I've already reserved my 15 nites at Willem's houseboat in AMS (near the university area), so my bike excursions will be primarily local; with some train-to, and bike once there, type day and over-night diversions.

Harlingen and Hindeloopen (and maybe Franeker's planetarium http://www.planetarium-friesland.nl/) are my current must-sees in Friesland. Ex-seaside towns- cut off by polder-building over the centuries, as well as Hanseatic-related cities (e.g., Deventer) are also some get-out-of-the-'dam curiosities. Figuring out day-trips combined with bike-riding is where much of my research will go until the May departure.

btw, the Hanse has reformed...
http://www.hanse.org/en/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_ ... nsa_cities

Colino: Biking around the Netherlands without a map while stoned … that's like traveling from one end of Middle Earth to the other without a sleeping bag. You are an ACD warrior of the highest order.

Please tell us a story or two about asking random Dutch people for directions back into town while in a state of diminished spacial capacities. I'm sinking into my chair just thinking about it :)

spidergawd: Your Bike Node Planner (routeyou.com/...) - what an amazing contribution to the forum! For all you who haven't checked it out yet, the Bike Node Planner is, in essence, a Google Maps for the Dutch bike path. Here's a screen shot of an ANWB bike map:



… and here's a screen shot of the Bike Node Planner corresponding to the same area:



BTW, the British travel outfit Stanfords appears to carry the ANWB bike maps: stanfords.co.uk/...

You were curious how I created the map of my bike itinerary, I think. The way I do it is crude and easy. You go to Google Maps and home in on your area of interest. On a Windows machine, you take a screen shot of the map by pressing the Print Screen key. Then you launch Microsoft Paint, create a new document, and then hit Ctrl-V to paste the map into the blank file. Crop it. Use the pen tool to make dots along your route, and you've got yourself a map of your bike tour.

Groningen … Groningen caught me off guard. It's a large city, large enough that it made me think of Amsterdam. It has its postcard moments, but what stayed in my mind is its grittiness. There's an edge to this town. I liked it.

I've gotta try Harlingen.

EasilySuede: The map -- no prob!

The thread turned out great by accident. I started by talking about my boring trip, and then smart people hijacked it to tell us how much they like to bike and see the country. To step out of Amsterdam! I'm so pleasantly surprised. The pot is what first brought me to the Netherlands, but it is the countryside – experienced by foot and bike – that keeps me coming back. That's what I'd like to think :)

That's quite a trip you've got planned! You have a lot of options. You could do Utrecht, Amersfoort or elsewhere as a day-trip by rail. Sigh.

quiky wrote:Colino: Biking around the Netherlands without a map while stoned … that's like traveling from one end of Middle Earth to the other without a sleeping bag. You are an ACD warrior of the highest order.

Please tell us a story or two about asking random Dutch people for directions back into town while in a state of diminished spacial capacities. I'm sinking into my chair just thinking about it

Have to admit it was quite hard but this experience confirmed me how dutch people are friendly and helpful. a dutch womantold me to follow her for some km to get to the path from rotterdam to gouda and utrecht. really amazed how she took care of me, I shouldn't look well at 11 am with already some grams in my lungs. dutch cycle paths are really a nice little world. I think biking in the NL is sort of a mood, and I love it, makes me feel free and peaceful

quiky wrote:EasilySuede: The grey dots indicate portions of the route where we/I portaged by rail or ferry. The black dots indicate the bike route.

thanks quiky for the route maps, they add something to your commentary now too

i've just been having a play with the routeyou.com website that spidergawd mentioned, and for fun i came up with this for a day's outing ...

http://www.routeyou.com/route/view/5638 ... haarlem.nl

the idea of the ride would be to meet in haarlem and then have a cycle ride though the nationaal park zuid-kennemerland down to zandvoort with the option of a visit to a coffeeshop, and then back to haarlem to complete the loop (and, hopefully, visit another coffeeshop to finish)

i have started doing rides along an access track next to a road dedicated only to buses, it is almost an off-road track for bicycles and i think of it as my fenland fietspad, and on the return leg of my last ride i went a bit further than before and discovered that there is a windmill next to the track and in the afternoon sunlight it made a pretty picture ... fenland fietspad indeed

trying to get fit ...

Colino: Being the insecure type that I am, I avoid contact with unfamiliar humans when I'm stoned. (Props to you for handling the situation with such decorum.) That being said, the Dutch *love* to provide directions. I've decided it's part of the national character.

If any of you out there want to meet the Dutch, here's what you do: Straddle your bike at the side of a road and stare a map. Seriously, you could be standing there holding a basket full of kittens, wearing nothing more than a thong, and as long as you're looking at a map a native will show up and offer you the best route to Bruekelen. People will pull over in their cars unsolicited. I can think of three occasions when it's happened.

StonedSince'67: Yo, how are we going to keep up with you on the tour if you keep training like that? Pro riders will be asked to smoke White Widow every 5km as a handicap :)

You're proposing a 29km loop. It's very tidy. But how about we make it a two-day trip … starting in Haarlem, going through Zuid-Kennemerland and ending up in, for instance, Lisse? I believe there's something special about heading for a new destination and spending a night there.

Love the report Quiky ...maybe you should just do an Elfstedentocht op de fiets .... 200 k or so ...but put Dokkum on your list for Fryslan...no CS ,but it does (09 our last visit) have Hakuna Matada ...a smoker friendly bar .Bring your own and at least you have a spot to spark ...locals were always very nice to us . Such a cool town .

Thanks for all this info guys. I always take 10-15 day trips yearly to Netherlands. I have been on a fitness kick this year noe that I have hit my later 30's, a biking tour would work wonders for making up for my libations (chocolate and frites) in Amsterdam, Stoned biking is fun!

Eps: I was riding on a train somewhere outside of Leeuwarden. I shared the bike foyer with a fellow bicyclist, a smaller woman in her 60s. She was also biking around the country and had just finished biking the Elfstedentocht. But get this: She and her friend were putting in 100km a day ...

BigDanHaze: Stoned biking works wonders for burning off libations. It is fun, too. True and true! You feel so good after the long ride.