Angry or Deranged?

I was at the Twin Six booth at Interbike when Brent said to me that I “look angry in all the photos I post”. I told him that it was pain, and not anger that he was seeing on my face. Finishing in the middle of the pack is neither cheap, nor easy. However, I tucked his observation into my pocket, thinking that the next day at the Gooseberry Epic that I’d have an opportunity to capture photographic evidence that proved I was capable of displaying something other than anger (or pain) while doing something I enjoy as much as riding my bike.

And so, about 6 hours into the Gooseberry ride, I slipped the camera from it’s pouch and snapped the photo below. As I did so I thought passively that, although I was trying very deliberately to not look angry, that I may have gone too far. And in fact, upon reviewing the evidence, I think the verdict is crystal clear: It is not joy on my face, but utter and complete derangement. It is the sun-cooked look of a mad man, far removed from the realms of rational behavior and thought. It is, I fear, the product of spending far too much time with the likes of Brad and Dug in the heat of the open desert.

With the benefit of a few days off, and the lucid acumen of hindsight, I have come to realize that the perceived anger that I may have been portraying in photos this summer is far and away superior to the very real and frightening delirium on display in this alarming photograph.

And it forces me to wonder, that imaginably, those many people who question the sanity of doing such events are not, in actuality, on to something.