Places to skate

First off, there's a list of ramps that InLine Magazine Nederland has published, with many additions from people all over the 'net.

980520: De Uithof, in Utrecht, appears to have facilities for inline skating during the summer, consisting of two flat oval tracks. The surface is reportedly extremely smooth. Their opening hours are monday through saturday from 9 to 23, sundays from 10 to 17. Entrance fee is f4,- per person.

980108: There is a skate park in Borne, as Sydney reports. Funbox, bank, quarterpipes, grind rails, vert-pipe, etc. Outdoors and free entrance.

970730: Spaarnwoude: Good asphalt and some hills for a change.

970730: Zandvoort: Great skating on the boulevard. Also a nice practice area above the laser-zone, with lots of skaters. (Walk down the stairs at the back of the practice area, and you'll end up at the Dolphinarium, which has been turned into an indoor skate site.) 970819: Now there's also a picture (by Martin Bracke).

970730: Haarlem: Good skating all over the center of town. A nice trip is from the central station to Zandvoort, but take care not to do this on a Saturday with nice weather, as the road will be jammed with bikes.

Patrick Boek (pab@dds.nl) reports no less than two skate spots: In Den Haag, in the Zuiderpark, there are lots of skaters in the evenings, with wide paths and perfect asphalt. (And of course you can buy icecream at the various snackbars.)

He continues: In the Groenteveiling in Poeldijk (which is in Westland) it is quite good skating in the evenings, since there's nobody there after, say, 19:00 or 20:00, and most of the doors are left open in the evenings! A great indoor site!

Alice C. P. Gee maintains a page of routes from central Amsterdam to various nearby areas suitable for long distance touring.

970819: If you live in Amsterdam, you may be interested in the Friday Night Skate, or in the Dutch version. A regular event, every friday evening (provided the roads are not wet). This is getting bigger and bigger, last week there were about 35 skaters!

A big skatepark has opened in Zandvoort, on the 31st of May 1997. Apparently the opening featured Jess Dyrenford riding a demo. Two vert-pools and a pool of about two meters high and lots of street-stuff.

Zephyr Inline Skating Tours is an American company that organizes (commercial) inline skating tours through the Netherlands. Take a look at their web site for more information.

In Nijmegen, Plein 44 is supposed to be a popular skating place, with various constructions.

Another nice indoor skating place seems to be Vrieshuis Amerika in Amsterdam. Their website, which is not working anymore, said that some things at least are temporarily closed down (970611). Other information contradicts this and says they still have parties on thursdays.

Rick Rateick (Richard.G.Rateick.1@nd.edu) writes: I am a speed skater, so, the hightlight of my trip was to skate at the skeeler bahn in Oldebroek. At that time we did not have any inline ovals in the U.S. (we now have 1). I liked skating on the nice smooth, clean surface of the skeeler bahn, it was almost like being on the ice. Regarding Skeeler Bahns, according to the U.S. Inline Magazine of a few years ago, you guys have about 9 inline ovals.

In Scheveningen, an excellent place to skate is the Boulevard. The most touristic part of the Boulevard doesn't have such great pavement, but the athmosphere is wonderful. The other part has a lot better pavement, and you can also see quite a few other skaters there (depends on the weather, of course). Along the Boulevard, you can find quite a few stairs and other interesting ledges and so on.

Conant (dconant@euronet.nl) writes: All of The Hague is pretty much skateable if you want to deal with some cobblestones. But otherwise no problems.

Take the bike path along the municipal road from Delft to The Hague. The bike path is quite good quality. About half way between Delft and Rijswijk, on the side of this bike path, is a recreational park, the Wilhelmina Park, where it's very good skating, but not really for trickskating, as most paths aren't very wide. 970819: This park is still good to skate in, there are a couple of tracks that you can take that are a couple of kilometers long, good for longer distance training. All you have to watch out for is the occasional dog. Get there by going from Delft to the shopping centre `De Boogaard', the bike path is great, too!

As I used to live in Delft, I know some places there where it's fun to skate. Here's a list:

A parking lot in front of the 'Techniek Museum'. It's usually empty in the evenings, and the asphalt is very good. There are stones sticking out of the asphalt to mark the parking places, so take care. I guess this would be not so suited to street hockey, but for practicing, it's quite ok.

The parking lot of the Ikea. It's quite big, some interesting obstacles, a couple of stairs, and wonderful asphalt. It's only lighted until 19:30, so it's use is a bit limited, except on sundays. Also, it seems that the parking garage of Ikea is open until one hour after closing time. The concrete there is the slickest I've ever seen, but it's not a fun place to skate anyway. Try it, and you'll see.

The parking lot of the Macro. Never been here after the shop closes, but the asphalt seems to be good, and there's some interesting obstacles, too.

Delft-Zuid train station. Under the bridge of Delft Zuid Station there's some reasonable asphalt, and a small ledge you can jump off. At the south side of the bridge, you should be able to spot a miniramp a little further off. (Stick to the bike path, immediately cross the street, and you're right at it.) It was rather dirty when I checked it out, but otherwise it was ok.

In Vlissingen, skating heaven seems to be the area around the Scheldeplein and the Walstraat. It's pedestrian area, really, so take care. There's usually a bunch of skaters here. The deal with the police is the following: Skating is not allowed, but as long as you're not involved in any accident that needs cops to solve it, they'll not fine you. So take double care! The fine is f50,- and the second time you're caught, your skates are taken.

In Rotterdam, there is a pipe and a streethockey court (with some organised matches, in the summer season) near Alexander station, behind the sports hall Alexanderhal. Directions to this place are: Subway to station Prinsenlaan. Get out, straight on, traffic lights, straight on, bike path with water to the right, parking lot. Cross parking lot to the left/top, and you'll see it. For a list of streethockey groups, check out this list.

Also in Rotterdam, a good place to skate is along the Rotte. Start at the Irenebrug in Het Lage Bergse Bos. The whole route has asphalt, which is pretty good except for a couple of places. At the end of the Rotte you'll find a turning point where you can change to the other side.

Another interesting place is the roller-ski track in Het Hoge Bergse Bos in Bergschenhoek (Rotterdam), near the climbing tower and the mountainbike track. This track is accessible to everybody (including bikers, who have been warned, though). There is an interesting hill and a good downhill, too, where you can get up to 35kmh, even when being careful. And it's a nice track.

Actually, most of Rotterdam seems to be quite accessible by skates, as the roads are quite smooth. The Willemsburg gives an especially nice view of the town, according to Roelf Dijkhuizen (with a steep hill going down).

We've got a dedicated page about Amsterdam, (once) maintained by Lowlevel. A more actively updated page is the Amsterdam Skeeler Homepage, by Just van den Broecke, which is also of interest to us 4-wheelers, and now has a mailinglist and chatsite.

Niels `Fly' Alkema (superfly@dataweb.nl) tells me: There's a nice place to skate in Zoetermeer. You'll find it behind the local disco (Locomotion). There's a hill with a nice smooth and wide bicyclepath on it. You can make a lot of speed on this one. From the hill you can skate into a park which has got wide but not really smooth bikepaths through it. Eventually you'll end up near some farms between the cows. Very nice. There's some fine bikepaths in Zoetermeer, but the city is extremely boring.

goudsk8@pi.net (whose email address doesn't seem to work) reports about Amstelveen. The KPMG building there is a very nice place to skate, but, unfortunately, the rent-a-cops there won't let you. Places where you can skate are the Postbank at `het Binnenhof' and the Skatebaan near the Casimir School (take tram 5 or 51, get off at Onderuit).

Sanders (hondxx@worldonline.nl) says: In Heerlen, Limburg, a good place to skate seems to be the `Woonboulevard', where there are lots of curves and straight parts too, all with a good road surface. Especially nice on Sundays and after 20:00.

Teddy Dako (90002823@student.sem.hhs.nl) says that it's good skating around the Zuiderpark in the Hague. The asphalt is quite good, and the path is quite long. Teddy also knows of the bike path between the Hague and Zoetermeer, which is perfect for long-distance skaters. It starts on the other side of the Vliet.

Again, this is only a very meagre bit of information right now. I know that, but I hope it will grow. You can actively contribute to that growth by sending me information on skating in the Netherlands.

johannes@nada.kth.se

	A parking lot in front of the 'Techniek Museum'. It's usually empty in the evenings, and the asphalt is very good. There are stones sticking out of the asphalt to mark the parking places, so take care. I guess this would be not so suited to street hockey, but for practicing, it's quite ok.
	The parking lot of the Ikea. It's quite big, some interesting obstacles, a couple of stairs, and wonderful asphalt. It's only lighted until 19:30, so it's use is a bit limited, except on sundays. Also, it seems that the parking garage of Ikea is open until one hour after closing time. The concrete there is the slickest I've ever seen, but it's not a fun place to skate anyway. Try it, and you'll see.
	The parking lot of the Macro. Never been here after the shop closes, but the asphalt seems to be good, and there's some interesting obstacles, too.
	Delft-Zuid train station. Under the bridge of Delft Zuid Station there's some reasonable asphalt, and a small ledge you can jump off. At the south side of the bridge, you should be able to spot a miniramp a little further off. (Stick to the bike path, immediately cross the street, and you're right at it.) It was rather dirty when I checked it out, but otherwise it was ok.