DrThere’s something about cycling that appeals to intellectuals, too. There are many examples of writers and philosophers who have been fascinated by its processes. For anyone who bikes to the bakery, racing at first glance seems like just pedaling.
But sports are much more complex: training theory, material, tactics. It is said that bicycle racing has become a science that requires not only strength, speed and above all endurance, but also intelligence. Added to this are aesthetics, willpower, the ability to suffer, and the competition of man against man and woman against woman. All of this concerns thinkers like Roland Barthes, Olivier Haralambone, and Peter Sloterdijk.
From philosophy to higher sports
In The Art of Cycling – About Life on Two Wheels and Philosophy, James Hibbard, Ph.D., sets out to understand “the many little things” in his sport as comprehensively as possible, as he declares in the introduction. This American from the US not only provides insight into his life as a former professional cyclist, but also explains why philosophers like cycling.
Hibbard reports on a three-day cycling trip he took with two friends after a long break from sport and weaves this story with episodes from his time as a prominent athlete; With philosophical ideas and concepts from Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche or Kant; And with personal things when he talks about his depression.
The result is a book that reveals the intellectual side of sports. With his sensitive narrative, Hibbard is thought-provoking for those willing to engage with the questions and concepts raised in the book.
James Hibbard: The Art of Cycling. Ideal Sports Bulletin 2023, 353 pages, €22.
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Photo: Verlag Ideal Sports
Hibbard criticizes technical progress, capitalism, and society. He asks himself a question about the meaning of life, addressing mental health and the emptiness an athlete can feel after the end of his career. Always told in a pointed, passionate, and captivating way, Hibbard offers insight into a world (of thought) to which one loves to surrender.
His view of the sport’s bare bones and consequences also offers interesting things: he views the world record set by Francesco Moser in 1984 as a break because he forced the analytical approach into competitive sport. Elsewhere he draws a line from Heidegger’s ideas on stock exploitation to doping in cycling. The manipulation led him to leave the professional scene because it became clear to him: “You have to dope or you will get out.”
There is no universal method
Hibbard got off the bike and got back into it. For him, “it is not a means of self-help (…) to liberate us or solve our philosophical, intellectual or psychological problems. But, for a moment at least, cycling allows you to overcome the mistaken belief that you are a Cartesian soul, confined in a body doomed to decay, and that, like others, you can only come to know the world itself to a limited extent.
In an interview with “TAZ,” Hibbard said that cycling is not a universal path to the meaning of life. Everyone has to find their own way. The message of existentialism, through which he first came into contact with philosophy, was more or less: “Stop thinking and get on your bike!” Or a garden! Or take care of your grandmother!” Overthinking leads to a rather unhappy life.
Hibbard has experienced this himself, as he reveals in the context of his depression. What cycling showed him: “If you devote enough attention to a task,” Hibbard writes, “you will realize that survival is far more complex than you can put into words.”
James Hibbard: The art of cycling. Ideal Sports Bulletin 2023, 353 pages, €22.
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