My wife and I first purchased inline skates when we moved to New York City in the summer of 1997. New York is a fantastic place to live, but if you live in Manhattan and don't have an easy way to leave Manhattan, you will go crazy without frequent escapes to Central Park. Central Park provides sweeping lawns, forested areas and nature preserves, eclectic statues and architecture, free summer concerts and theatrical performances, various sporting fields, decorative fountains, ponds and lakes, restaurants, food vendors, bird sanctuaries and general good-natured spontaneous weirdness. Central Park also has 'The Loop'.

The Loop is a paved road three lanes wide which winds its way around the park. At 9700 meters in length, one circuit of the Loop is just a shade over six miles. Every day from 10am until 3pm, and after 7:30pm as well as all-day on weekends, the Loop is (mostly) traffic free, making it a mecca for joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters. The skaters range over the complete spectrum of skill-levels, from absolute just-learning-to-stand-on-these-things beginners all the way to seasoned inline-skating professional racers. The volunteer skate-patrol helpfully offers free clinics in how to stop, and hands out maps of the loop diagramming where the more and less advanced sections can be found. Heather and I spend a lot of time on skates on the Loop. It's great excercise, doesn't wreck your knees like jogging can do, and gets you outside into green surroundings.