Pinkbike's photo of the day today was a classic example of ETT, coming from a classically trained ETT expert, Josh Lane of the U.K. Let me start by saying that I have no idea what's going on in this picture. Is he falling? Constipation? What direction is he going? Where did his sleeves and dignity go? All good questions.
People will defend this photo by pointing to the lighting or the composition or the dynamic action of all the other formal artsy words you can hide behind when defending BS, but there are only two ways a shitbomb like this could have gotten selected. First, if the person choosing photos was blind or Canadian or both. Second, if the person choosing photos had never ridden a bike. Anyone who has ridden a bicycle, and most people who haven't, would see this photo and know this guy sucks.
And this isn't Josh's first appearance on a Team Robot ETT article, as he was featured in a February 2012 article with this equally ridiculous picture:
Eight months later, and still no major epiphanies- still no clue what direction he's supposed to be going. In race circles we call this maneuver "getting high sided," but apparently in the freeride world they call it "shootin banger nugs with the photogs and blastin brown pow." I can only assume that's what they call it because he and everyone else in freeride land all have shitty sleeve tattoos and that's how people with sleeve tattoos talk in my brain.
And in case there was any doubt this guy sucked, here's another picture to put his program in context. And, this too has already been on Team Robot. I really hate this guy:
Now just for the record, this next photo doesn't totally suck. It is still a great example of ETT, but it's a different variety of ETT than the photos above. This photo was also a POD on pink bike, but I didn't feel like highlighting the link because this guy sucks.
This photo fits represents a specific sub-category of ETT called "Faircloughing," where great pains are taken to make sure the front wheel spends as little time in contact with the ground as possible. Here are some examples of Faircloughing:
It's important to note that Faircloughing isn't necessarily a bad thing. It looks like pretty badass, it's reasonably fast, and it's not too common, making it still feel fresh and new. The only times Faircloughing is socially inappropriate is at weddings, funerals, or when you have a job to be doing and you need to start taking shit serious and make it into the top 20 already.
Faircloughing was invented by Dave Cullinan...when sitting in a meeting with him and Dan Hanebrink, in 92', Cully was forced to ride the Hanebrink fork on his Iron Horse. The fork was constantly not working for Dave, but Cully told hanebrink "Dan, its all good man, I just manual over all the rough shit, my front wheel is never on the ground".
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