This is the filthiest gallery we’ve ever published

Let’s say, for purposes of discussion, that Kristof Ramon was at a few cyclocross races over the past couple of weeks and took a bunch of pictures. 

Now, let’s imagine that they were REALLY dirty. Just filthy. Slop everywhere. Belgian mud splattered about like a Jackson Pollock. 

When a bike race looks like that one scene from Slumdog Millionaire where the kid falls into a drop toilet, there’s not enough Napisan in the world to save your skinsuit. 

On these particular sloppy ‘cross days – at Herendals, at Dendermonde, at Baal – there were winners and there were losers. And at an individual level, sure – it probably mattered a bit to Mathieu van der Poel or Wout van Aert that they picked up their gazillionth race wins, or that Lucinda Brand continued her season dominance. 

For the purposes of this entirely hypothetical discussion, though, the results aren’t important. Not for this gallery.

So: imagine that you, hypothetically, had a bunch of gratuitously filthy CX photos and a platform to publish them on. What would you do?

I think you’d just want to showcase picture after picture of sloppy puddles shredded to ribbons by 33 mm tubular knives, of mud arcing in little flumes into arses and faces. You’d want to publish the pictures where you can’t tell who’s who, where the outcome of the race is secondary to the setting. All squelch, no story.

Wouldn’t you want that gallery?

I think you probably would.