I amazed that you found the others using the Park to be polite. It must be that the cold weather is keeping out the usual clueless lot. Honestly, the two reasons I don't ride much in the Park:

1) morons

2) cars entering at the SE corner and crossing the road around 70 or 80 someting street (I think)

I so badly want a car-free Central Park. Join the fight! Recently the rules were revised to make it safer for cyclists (speed limit down to 25mph, wo0t! now I can go faster than the cars!).

Anyway, back to the morons. I could go on and on but to summarize:

- people riding the wrong way

- rollerbladers who zig-zag all over

- foot and rollerblade traffic in the bike path, BOTH directions (doubly bad)

- people who don't know how to cross the street / Drive

- that freaking iPod everyone has so they can't hear when I try to tell them they are doing one of the above

I don't know what's the answer with rollerbladers, to be honest, but most appear unaware of cyclists.

Edit: BTW, I grew-up with the loop being about 6.2 miles, so your computer is about right. I should check my own.

Hope to see you in the Park someday!