The Bro Flo

It seems that every year I ride Breckenridge, I hear at least a couple hundred people suggest we install a tow rope at the top of Park Lane. Their reasoning is always the same. Too many gapers on the park chair. Too many gapers waiting in line for the Colorado Super Chair. Too many gapers falling in the middle of the run, becoming cannon fodder for the oncoming avalanche of Bro.

Tides Out Low Bro Flo!

And it makes sense, at least partly, because the park chair does start and stop all day long for the ski school kids who keep tripping on their skis. Nevertheless, I believe these armchair resort managers have not properly taken their suggestion to its horrific conclusion. Have they considered the real impact a park tow rope would have on the triple set at the top of Park Lane? Have they stopped for a moment, looked past their noses, and envisioned the inevitable Orwellian future, a park populated with bros who won’t let you get an edge in trick-wise?

I think not. And to better understand why, I need to educate you on the emerging field of Gaper-Bro Fluid Dynamics. Only a few scientists have dared to enter this field, fearing their voices might be silenced by those who wish to bolster the already growing bro population. But fear not! This new research will soon see the light of day, and it will have an untold impact on the sports of snowboarding and skiing as we know them.

The central hypothesis of Gaper-Bro Fluid Dynamics is as follows. For any park P, there is a causally interrelated Bro Flow B and Gaper Flow G such that G mitigates B. In other words, as G increases, B must necessarily decrease. Whenever the mountain is populated with tourists, bros have a harder time getting through the lift line. Hence Bro Flow through the park must decrease.

Lacking a strong presence of G, B will increase without limit. This typically manifests itself as the unending “Sea Of Bro” at the top of Park Lane. Most people caught in the midst of this sea become so broverwhelmed that they lose all sense of personal identity. They become one with the bros, if only to get their shot at escaping the slow creep down the in-run of jump one.

The weather also has an impact on Gaper-Bro Fluid Dynamics. As a general rule, a snowstorm tends to result in a slight increase of G and a large decrease of B. Gapers, for the most part, are intimidated by a strong Bro Flow, so they tend to enter the park when the Bro Flow subsides. Bros, on the other hand, are notorious for going to all ends of the mountain to find any remaining traces of snow from a two inch storm. If you don’t follow them, they will cast you away from their tightly knit social group.

To ride park and do anything but straight airs on a pow day is to forfeit one’s status as a bro. These not-quite-bros fit into an intermediate group that can’t entirely be classified. Suffice it so say, their impact on Gaper-Bro Fluid Dynamics is negligible.

Now that we have a proper understanding of Gaper-Bro Fluid Dynamics, the ramifications of installing a Park Lane tow rope become quite clear. The new tow rope would act as a sort of “bro intake valve” that only adds more bros to the already broverwhelming Bro Flow. Lacking a corresponding increase in G to counteract the increase in B, the Sea Of Bro becomes an unstoppable ocean, a continually surging avalanche of tall tees and Skull Candy headphones destined to claim everything in its path.

There is a rhyme and reason to the age old wisdom of Love Thy Gaper. For without G, B becomes utterly uncontrollable. As much as they annoy us, as unpredictable as their gaperian motion is, gapers aren’t the real problem. The bros are. To fight Bro Flow with more bros is absurd.