THE BRONX LUGE.(Gordy Sheer offers luge lessons in Van Cortlandt Park, New York City)

It's not often that weather conditions in New York City are conducive to Olympic events like the luge, but the recent cold spell coincided neatly with a visit from Gordy Sheer, a silver-medallist "slider" in Nagano, to Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx. As part of the city's 2003 Winter Festival, Sheer had agreed to offer free luge lessons, so, on one of the coldest days of the season, he drove his Chevy Express van (license plate: USA LUGE) to the foot of Van Cortlandt's Cass Gallagher Nature Trail, a wooded path carved out of what the park's Web site calls "rock outcroppings that are links to the last ice age," and began laying out a course. All in all, it was a nice choice of location, even taking into account that the sleds he'd brought with him had wheels rather than blades.

Sheer assembled a portable plywood ramp--five feet high and twelve feet long--about two hundred feet up the trail's paved access road, and lined the slope below with pairs of fluorescent yellow cones. Up the hill, behind the ramp, Parks Department employees dispensed hot chocolate.

After an hour, only one family had braved the cold, taking first the train, and then the bus, up from Inwood. The mother, Barbara, sat huddled on a rock and blew into her hands, while Sheer handed out helmets to Carlos (the father), Jack (the uncle), and Brandon (the nine-year-old son), and explained the basics: lie down on the sled, face up, feet first, arms at your sides; turn right, say, by pointing lightly across your body with your left foot and shifting your weight slightly to your right shoulder (imagine lying, shackled, in a bed, and attempting to roll over); stop by dropping your feet onto the pavement and absorbing the momentum with your legs. (In this last respect, perhaps more than in any other, the Bronx luge differed from the real deal: on ice there are no brakes, and only two ways to stop--crash or wait for an incline.)

Jack went first, slaloming through the cones. At the bottom, he raised his arms in triumph.

"Be confident, Brandon!" Carlos shouted, as his son fastened the chin strap on his helmet and ...