Organized by Empire Skate of New York, The Big Apple Roll was held on July 28-29-30, 3 days of fantastic URBAN-Skate! More than 150 skaters gathered for this event, coming mainly from the US... among which, a delegation of about 20 skaters from Quebec: a big gang from Roller Estrie, and a few from from Roller Montréal: Charles, Christine and Pierre Pauw, the latter participating for the second year in a row. Even though temperatures were quite extreme (with more than 30 degrees humidity), skaters were enthousiastic and curious about this adventure... that began with a Friday-Night-Skate, allowing us to explore and discover main touristic attractions like Central Park, Upper East Side, etc. as well as a variety of Manhattan's main arteres and little side-streets. On Saturday, we skated through must-see areas like little Italy, China Town, Brooklyn, etc. and even through sections of a pedestrian street holding a flee market. An experience quite unique! that only skaters can really appreciate due to their advantage of being on wheels! Then... we spent a couple hours relaxing and cooling off at Coney Island Beach... before skating back (the option of taking the metro was offered to anyone wanting to skip the skate back). Sunday came with just as many surprises: we skated three bridges of New York... each one of them offering a unique view of either side of the water... as such, an amazing conclusion to this week-end of urban-skate! All in all, we skated more than 120 km.... surrounded by yellow taxis, on surfaces much like those in Québec: potholes, cracks, snakes, etc. an experience of high intensity which we shared along with other skating-freaks. A thrill from A to Z.... which will come highly recommended in 2007 to Roller-Montréal skaters interested in discovering New York on skates... for not a lot of money. The photos are here. Christine Caron