Amsterdam Coffeeshop Directory Forums

StonedSince'67 wrote:

quiky wrote: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

Perfect! Just the kind of day trip that I'll be doing for the most part.

A new curiosity for day bike excursions, and the out-of-town coffeeshop opportunities they would provide...
(I bet Epsison's been to a few)


It's the old Defence Line of Amsterdam (de Stelling van Amsterdam), now on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
http://www.stelling-amsterdam.nl/englis ... index.html

Closer in, there's been something going in the old industrial area of the Zaanstreek for the past few years...

from http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/09/in ... lands.html
also, http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ ... el-zaandam
Seeing this new Zaandam, combined with the Zaanse Schaans experience, could make a nice day pedal

I've been to zaanse schans from amsterdam on a day trip and it's a very easy and nice ride! really enjoyed it and have seen that strange building in zaandam

I'm loving this , for years I've meandered round Holland on my bike and suddenly the ACD has a bike club, what a gas. .

spidergawd wrote:I'm loving this , for years I've meandered round Holland on my bike and suddenly the ACD has a bike club, what a gas. .

great isn't it, an ACD peloton would be a sight to behold

Colino wrote:I've been to zaanse schans from amsterdam on a day trip and it's a very easy and nice ride! really enjoyed it and have seen that strange building in zaandam

It's a hotel!...
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Revi ... vince.html
Prices aren't that bad, and it's only a 10-15 minute train ride to Centraal.

Two routes-
30 most beautiful streets in Amsterdam- http://www.routeyou.com/route/view/1328 ... sterdam.nl (bike or walk)
A ride around Amsterdam's fortress/flooding ring- http://www.routeyou.com/route/view/2793 ... tstocht.nl (I'll do this one in sections, over a few days)

cheers fietsers
http://www.allefietserswelkom.nl/

Colino, EasilySuede: Ha. I've stayed at that hotel. If you're into hip European chain hotels, Inntel Zaandam is a nice enough place … just keep in mind its windows don't open more than three inches. I spent a lot of time that trip huffing joints on the Westerwind bike path :)

Now, if you're looking for a hotel on the edge of town, try the Grand Hotel Amstelveen. I stay there every time I go. It's at the very end of the 51 Metro line – way, way south of the center, a 45-minute trip by metro to Amsterdam Centraal – but to me the trip is worth it. GHA is a monument to 1980s luxury. The rooms are huge. (The bathrooms are bigger than the *rooms* you'll find in some other places. Seriously.) Most of them come with balconies! The breakfast spread is fine. They offer a free washer and dryer and free laundry detergent to wash with. And a stoned walk in the polders is a matter of crossing the street.

EasilySuede: JohnnyBlaze, LaughBuddha, KandySkunk, VietBlackxThai, NepJam, PurpleCindy, ChocRain, X18, Taskenti, C99 … How about I just pedal on over to your place?

quiky wrote:Colino, EasilySuede: Ha. I've stayed at that hotel. If you're into hip European chain hotels, Inntel Zaandam is a nice enough place … just keep in mind its windows don't open more than three inches. I spent a lot of time that trip huffing joints on the Westerwind bike path

Too much fun!

quiky wrote:Now, if you're looking for a hotel on the edge of town, try the Grand Hotel Amstelveen. I stay there every time I go. It's at the very end of the 51 Metro line – way, way south of the center, a 45-minute trip by metro to Amsterdam Centraal – but to me the trip is worth it. GHA is a monument to 1980s luxury. The rooms are huge. (The bathrooms are bigger than the *rooms* you'll find in some other places. Seriously.) Most of them come with balconies! The breakfast spread is fine. They offer a free washer and dryer and free laundry detergent to wash with. And a stoned walk in the polders is a matter of crossing the street.

Q, you are a fountain of valuable info. I just hope you don't turn it off in the winter months to keep the pipes from freezing/bursting. Your photos from the Amsterdamse bos reflect your proximity to the hotel? BTW, the east end of the "drag strip for rowboats" (bosbaan) is a nice spot for a puff, and where I stop to do so on the way to the CoBrA Museum in Amstelveen.

quiky wrote:EasilySuede: JohnnyBlaze, LaughBuddha, KandySkunk, VietBlackxThai, NepJam, PurpleCindy, ChocRain, X18, Taskenti, C99 … How about I just pedal on over to your place?

Crikey, they've taken over the back bedroom! (actually, they have) Q, you're more than welcome to, though it's going to be a long wet ride.

proost

EasilySuede: Crikey is right – that's more mileage than I bargained for! Pay the girls my respects.

Grand Hotel Amstelveen is still a hike from The Border and the Bos, but I guess you could say that I wouldn't have ended up there had I not been staying at a hotel south of the city … Actually, now that I've looked at the map, GHA isn't so far from the southern tip of the Bos. One could walk to it in about 30 minutes.

One observation on the typical Dutch bike: It uses a fairly unusual inner tube. I picked one up in Utrecht. It's a 28”x1-5/8”x1-3/8”. And what's really special about it is that it has a Woods valve.

Most of Europe, I believe, goes with the Presta valve. North America uses Schrader valves on its more economical bikes and Prestas on the good stuff. The Dutch, however, tend to put the Woods on their fietspad cruisers. We discovered, out of sheer desperation, that it is possible to inflate a tube with a Woods valve with a Presta pump. (You push the pump's nozzle down upon the valve with a *lot* of force.) Sheer desperation, however, is not the optimal mode to work in when fixing a flat. Especially when Bubblegum is shaping your world view.

If you can pick up a pump designed for the Woods valve, great. If you can't, there's an equally good alternative. You use your Schrader pump along with a Presta valve adapter. This combination works flawlessly, as far as I can tell. (The Woods valve is the same diameter as a Presta, but it lacks the valve stem that sticks out of the Presta. For whatever reason the Woods likes Presta adapters more than Presta-native pump nozzles.) Schrader-to-Presta adapters are readily available on eBay and elsewhere and they only cost several Euro.

A Schrader-to-Presta adapter:

AK-47 (De Poort, Enkhuizen, €?/g) – AK-47 does not get me high. I bought some last year at Horizon in Amersfoort and the result was the same. I can't explain it. For me the effect is insignificant.

I believe I picked up the AK at De Poort. It may have been from Utoop in Leeuwarden, however.

Afgaan Skunk (Splif II, Purmerend, €10/1.25g) – Man, first I smoked this at the coffeeshop. I had a little walk around town and started to appreciate the moment.

I went back to the hotel to extract Slav and Najwa from their room. They were just up to it. We went back the coffeeshop and Slav smoked some of the weed. He got weird and defensive at first, and we left for an evening walk.

The air was so clear. The streetlights sparkled in the cold. The houses and canals were somehow floodlit in gold. We were both like, “Wow.” We probably said it ten times. How shall I put it … Afgaan Skunk is a stone with a strong beam of clarity shining through it. The openness gave the mind free range. I was awake.

Later on I smoked some Afgaan Skunk with Duke, during a stop in the polders. He thought it was good, ok. Whatever. Biking past all that greenness, it was so nice.

quiky wrote:Afgaan Skunk (Splif II, Purmerend, €10/1.25g) – Man, first I smoked this at the coffeeshop. I had a little walk around town and started to appreciate the moment.

I went back to the hotel to extract Slav and Najwa from their room. They were just up to it. We went back the coffeeshop and Slav smoked some of the weed. He got weird and defensive at first, and we left for an evening walk.

The air was so clear. The streetlights sparkled in the cold. The houses and canals were somehow floodlit in gold. We were both like, “Wow.” We probably said it ten times. How shall I put it … Afgaan Skunk is a stone with a strong beam of clarity shining through it. The openness gave the mind free range. I was awake.

Later on I smoked some Afgaan Skunk with Duke, during a stop in the polders. He thought it was good, ok. Whatever. Biking past all that greenness, it was so nice.

That is hardcore cycling in the wintertime man. I want to get an ACD bike trip going but not till 420 week!

Treetop: I'm still working from my notes from August!

Love these little reviews poping out from time to time

Thanks Quiky !