Remi Therion

If you're doing fantasy WC next year and if Dirt is doing fantasy next year, you could do worse than picking up Remi Thirion:

He's French, which if you're not Cedric means you probably have the personality of a cardboard box, but don't let that take away from his riding: it's incredible.

I think he's one of the most exciting riders to watch, like 2008 vintage Blenki or 2010 Lewis Buchanan. Unpredictable and wild on the bike. Controlled chaos and all that. Also, apparently he was the second most consistent French rider after Loic Bruni in 2012. Considering that he was running Hutchison tires and finished half the World Cup races with a flat tire that's pretty impressive.

It would be faster to run real tires, tie a rope to the back of your bike, and drag your whole year's worth of Hutchison whatevertheycalltheirDHtire tires behind your bike. 10 to 1 he has a flat or slow leak in the above picture.

Here's an old picture from '08 of Remi Thirion at Schladming. There's a venue that needs to return to WC racing. Also, major Frenchie points for running another random brokedick Frenchie frame. Sunn in '08, Labyrinth in 2012. Is Labyrinth French? Whatever, still major points for not caving in and getting a real bike.

Speaking of Euros, I randomly stumbled on these Schladming photos through Google, and they're from some dude named Gill Adamson Bambucas. That's a terrible name if you're American, so I assume he's also a Euro.

And here's the thing: the random no-name Euro in the picture above is probably faster than all of us. Yeah, I know he couldn't look like more of a jamoke to us Americans. Some goofy frame you've never heard of, a 888, whatever that helmet is, he borrowed Lance Canfield's shorts and he's running nurse scrubs on top. But he's got Italy socks, so we can only assume that his name is Giovanni, his grandpa was a star driver for Ferrari back before the war, and he's been racing moto enduro with his dad Salvetorio in the Italian Alps since he was four.

Which isn't to say that he isn't a total Joe in Euro terms, only to say that Euro Joes are faster than our fast guys here in the states.

-From Charlie, your resident Joe from the states.