City Trip: Amsterdam! By BdJ

Apr 15, 2026

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 102 times

What's missing in the list of London, New York and Paris? Amsterdam of course. It might not be the most exotic trip to do since it's only a 2-hour drive (or less), but there was a good reason this time for a day-trip to the Dam because Ben Hennon invited us to have a couple of drinks for his B-day. The plan was to go by train for obvious reasons but sometimes the train system doesn't work well. Some of it was blocked so parts of the trip would have to be done by bus, adding to the travel time. On the way up that might not be much of a problem but going back, you don't want to be stuck somewhere. Instead we drove over to the NDSM-Plein North of the city centre. Parking in Amsterdam is a problem but at the NDSM-Plein it's lots cheaper and if you can find an empty spot, parking is free. We managed to find a spot hoping it wasn't false parking but it was worth taking the risk.

The NDSM Plein has hosted several BMX events. Also the former shipyard was used to build ramps for the Red Bull Framed Reactions event back in 2012. Red Bull used to have their offices there and the place is full of graffiti which is always nice to look at. Next to the restaurants there are also some bars where we met up with Ben Hennon and family. They had taken the wrong ferry from the city centre to the NDSM-Plein and were thirsty for the first beer to say the least. Ben and his dad Tony are legends. We have traveled to many events where we ended up closing the bar.

Ben's riding was always spectacular and his directness in saying what he thinks fits well with the Dutch, or at least with us. Ben turned 40, is a working man, loves his M3 and rides some motocross with Tony when he has time. He hasn't changed a bit though and good times were had reminiscing about the good old days. Too many stories for a few hours that we got to catch up before the Hennon crew took a free ferry back to the city centre and we cruised home.

Sometimes it needs to be done. Driving 4 hours to see friends you haven't seen for years. Life is too short to pass up opportunities like these. On this trip we did not see much of Amsterdam, but the NDSM-Plein is one of my favourite parts anyway. It's accessible for free for bikes and pedestrians from Central Station by ferry all day long. This area used to have a bowl and indoor skatepark which are gone now unfortunately, but Skatecafé Amsterdam (Karin & Yvonne) isn't too far away, also North of the IJ river. Amsterdam has loads of public skateparks, more than you can handle in a weekend, just hit up Google and it will tell you where to go.

Anyway, wrapping up this "City-Trip" telling you that our car was still there when we picked it up, without a parking ticket. We made it home in decent time and were lucky not to get stuck at some random train station if we had chosen the NS. Happy B-day Ben Hennon!

BdJ