(Note: This story has, in fact, nothing whatsoever to do with the title. It only calls to mind the absolutely beautiful title of the previous post in these hallowed pixels. Its inclusion here is simply to provide inflammatory rhetoric, fuel for the fire, a fart in the bathtub of intelligentsia. So fucking there.)

So the FlatIrons (or Fat Morons) Crossing mall opened on Friday, and about 1.2 billion gap-toothed Visigoth suburban hordes took the opportunity to drive their dangerous SUVs (as if the machismo attitude of these intellectual mini-mes weren’t bad enough, now we have to add high speed tire disintegration to the picture) over to some huge parking lot and eagerly await for the ribbon to drop so they can spend their hard-earned dollars on the wondrous offerings of the new Crate & Barrel.

These conscientious caretakers of mindless consumerism displayed, for the opening of our newest bit of sprawl (Recipe: bulldoze a bit of land, put up something that we didn’t need – a golf course, shopping center, low-density condos, and name it for what used to be there, ie. Beaver Brook, or Elk Meadows). I find it interesting that these trudging troglodytes of suburbia can find the motivation and energy to show up an hour early for the mall opening, but cannot find the motivation to show even a trace of their ancestors’ exploratory inquisitiveness to say, go out and explore the great outdoors.

It’s not just about getting outside, it’s about the yak-like mindset. Just for giggles, sit on the side of the Betasso trail on some random Saturday with a head-count clicker. Betcha you’ll pass 200 on two-wheels, including some mouth-breathing downhill gorillas shuttling the epic eight-minute descent out. Whee-ha, I’m extreme now. At the same time, up there somewhere, are great trails, uncrowded, open and affording views and experiences that Betasso only wishes for. We rode some the other morning on the finest commute known to man.

The players: TP, DK and moi, graciously tagging along on one of the finest Dawn Patrols ever. With a desire to take in some territory that’s not normally on the commute agenda. TP and DK agree to run out North of our usual stomping grounds, to do a descent of a trail named for a long-running television show, a show written by a guy who used to be editor at Surfer Magazine. The route will be mapped for the first time by TP’s top-secret government spy satellites, tracking us with infrared technology, after which point the results will be downloaded over an encrypted section of programming code from “Tomb Raider” that functions to draw the shape of Lara Croft’s ass on your TV screen. The result will be none other than a topo of our descent to the salt mines of Boulder.

DK and I were up shortly after five; breakfast of oatmeal, some hard-ass coffee and one hardboiled egg (Breakfast o’ Chumps). Collect TP and more coffee at his house and we’re off. The descent, down the lovely Swiss Miss trail, was like Thomas Hobbes’ description of the lives of most men, “Nasty, brutish and short.” It’s six in the morning, the muscles are not working and neither is the steering. TP discovers that the suspension fork he’s installed the night before in place of his normal rigid fork is low on air and the rebound damper appears to be blown. Riding it nearly-bottomed out, this affords our Mad Minnesotan a head angle of roughly 84 degrees on his trusty single. He still manages to easily ride the whole descent and part of the nasty baby-head climb out that follows.

Here’s where we get funny: from Swiss Miss, our route leads us through several gorgeous mountain meadows and a small mountain enclave of loosely-spaced houses, to a trail that wends through an absolutely gorgeous aspen grove. It’s lightly downhill, fast, and just tight enough to be flossin’ and flyin’. It exits around a corner that looks out North and West on the Continental Divide and some of the most beautiful front range hills in the area – largely devoid of houses or roads or other human traces. And it’s 100 percent legal, marked and open. Not that anyone but a few locals and horseback riders know it. Since I began riding it this year I’ve seen not one person on it. And that’s just fine. The masses can stay at Abercrombie and Fitch, spilling their Orange Julius all over a pair of overpriced “distressed-look” cargo shorts.

The morning light is amazing, and we stop to snap a few photos, hoping to capture the beauty of our surroundings, if not the experience of our ride today. With nearly 4500 feet of descending, you’d think this route would be a shuttle monkey’s dream. Thankfully, they’ve not found it yet.

The descent continues, down to the Television Show Trail, where a low-speed crash tweaks a brake lever almost pasty the point where I can’t reach it from the bars. Wary of bending it back (or breaking it) before we get to the real fun part, I elect to leave it and settle for awkward braking. This section hates brakes, having eaten JA’s right rear XTR cantilever arm not a month and a half earlier.

From TV land we traverse a short road climb-and-descent to another trail, down the fast, loose drops and several quick turns to the lower terminus of the ole' P.T trails, riding on a ancient ledge built atop a stone abutment on the hill – don’t fall here, or you’ll be lucky to wake up sipping your food through a straw and knowing your name. Hopping out on the road, DK, TP and I look at each other, amazed to have ridden for nearly three hours on some of the most beautiful terrain on earth, and having seen no one. A fox, pure black except for a small white cap to his tail, which none of us have ever seen before, crosses the road in front of us, perfectly capping the ride.

After nearly killing a few unsuspecting pedestrians on the upper creek path (the most treacherous part of the ride) we part ways and head to work, each wearing an ear to ear smile and a glow that will stay with us all day. As I cross Arapahoe I notice a stressed-out thirty-something in a late-model Explorer, pinning his phone between ear and shoulder and juggling coffee, the steering wheel and some papers he’s managed to spread all over the passenger seat. Ah, commutes. The day’s lead story in the paper on my porch is about the anticipation over the opening of FlatIrons Crossing.