Maddy, a chocolate milk shake connoisseur, has come to sample the diner's "Best of Miami" shake (it registers only a so-so on the Maddy Meter). She also tackles an enormous chili cheese dog. The rest of us fall prey to steak, eggs, a hamburger, and the excellent people-watching. As we stroll the couple of blocks home, the city's throngs are just warming up fresh legs for a long
night out.

THE NEXT MORNING, we eschew our hotel's complimentary continental breakfast, instead splurging at a personal favorite, the News Cafe. The NC is chameleonlike, changing its personality many times during its 24-hour cycle. At 9 a.m., it is in its sun-kissed, laid-back mode; Bach drifts in the background as patrons munch on eggs and smoked salmon or platters of fruit, Brie, and Swiss.

Our waiter, Michael, is one of many New York transplants, trading 14 years at a Big Apple institution, Elaine's, for this South Beach standard a couple of years ago. "I love it out of the cold," he says, beaming. He suggests we check out Española Way, a South American-influenced block between Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets. "Al Capone once owned the Clay Hotel there."

Even this early in the day, some of Miami's sleek and fashionable saunter before us along Ocean Drive, the city's silvery sand beckoning on our left and its awakening art deco sidewalk cafés and outrageous boutiques on our right.

We walk a few blocks to the Miami Beach Bicycle Center on Fifth Street, where owner­ Jack Ruiz has been renting bikes for 29 years. Once outfitted, we ease down Washington to the tip of South Beach, looping through South Pointe Park. As we pedal our mountain bikes northward through the thick sand, the number of bodies strewn on towels and under umbrellas increases.