Cycling - Philosophy for Everyone E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Philosophy for Everyone
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 520

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Covering interesting and varied philosophical terrain, Cycling - Philosophy for Everyone explores in a fun but critical way the rich philosophical, cultural, and existential experiences that arise when two wheels are propelled by human energy. * Incorporates or reflects the views of high-profile and notable past-professional cyclists and insiders such as Lennard Zinn, Scott Tinley, and Lance Armstrong * Features contributions from the areas of cultural studies, kinesiology, literature, and political science as well as from philosophers * Includes enlightening essays on the varieties of the cycling experience, ranging from the ethical issues of success, women and cycling, environmental issues of commuting and the transformative potential of cycling for personal growth * Shows how bicycling and philosophy create the perfect tandem * Includes a foreword by Lennard Zinn, author and owner of Zinn Cycles Inc.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Foreword

Lennard Zinn

Acknowledgments

Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin

Getting in Gear: An Introduction to Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone

Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin

STAGE 1 THE VARIETIES OF CYCLING EXPERIENCE

1 Warm Up: A Surreal Ride

Patrick Vala-Haynes

2 Learning to Ride a Bike

Peter M. Hopsicker

3 Becoming a Cyclist: Phenomenological Reflections on Cycling

Steen Nepper Larsen

4 Unleash the Beast: Technology and the Time Trial

Bryce T. J. Dyer

STAGE 2 VELO VIRTUES

5 Warm Up: A Test of One’s Mettle

Patrick Vala-Haynes

6 Lance Armstrong and True Success

Gregory Bassham and Chris Krall

7 LeMond, Armstrong, and the Never-Ending Wheel of Fortune

Scott Tinley

8 Riding Like a Girl

Catherine A. Womack and Pata Suyemoto

9 Bicycling and the Simple Life

Russell Arben Fox

STAGE 3 RE-CYCLING

10 Warm Up: When Two Wheels Meet Four

Patrick Vala-Haynes

11 Philosophical Lessons from Cycling in Town and Country

Robert H. Haraldsson

12 The Commutist Manifesto

John Richard Harris

13 Critical Mass Rides Against Car Culture

Zack Furness

STAGE 4 SPINNING WISDOM

14 Warm Up: Are You Real? Tony Meets Bishop Berkeley

Patrick Vala-Haynes

15 My Life as a Two-Wheeled Philosopher

Heather L. Reid

16 Cycling and Philosophical Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Steven D. Hales

17 From Shoes to Saddle

Michael W. Austin

STAGE 5 FAIR PLAY ON TWO WHEELS

18 Warm Up: Pushing the Envelope

Patrick Vala-Haynes

19 What To Do Once They’re Caught

John Gleaves

20 Out of Control: The Pirate and Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Raymond Angelo Belliotti

21 Is the Cannibal a Good Sport?

Andreas de Block and Yannick Joye

STAGE 6 PEDALING CIRCLES

22 Warm Up: Riding into Awe

Patrick Vala-Haynes

23 Taking the Gita for an Awesome Spin

Seth Tichenor

24 Stretched Elastics, the Tour de France,and a Meaningful Life

Tim Elcombe and Jill Tracey

25 Life Cycles and the Stages of a Cycling Life

Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Mike McNamee

Notes on Contributors: The Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone Peloton

VOLUME EDITORS

JESÚS ILUNDÁIN-AGURRUZA is Assistant Professor ofPhilosophy, and Allen and Pat Kelley Faculty Scholar at LinfieldCollege, Oregon. He has published in the journals Sports, Ethics, andPhilosophy and Proteus. He is a category 2 racer.

MICHAEL W. AUSTIN is an Associate Professor of Philosophy atEastern Kentucky University, where he works primarily in ethics. He has published Conceptions of Parenthood: Ethics and the Family (2007),Running and Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind (Wiley-Blackwell,2007), and Football and Philosophy:Going Deep (2008).

SERIES EDITOR

FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the PhilosophyDepartment at Western Michigan University, as well as a SeniorResearch Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre forApplied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing thePhilosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editorfor several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007),Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007).

PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYONE

Series editor: Fritz Allhoff

Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking. Thinking not just about the Big Questions, but about little ones too. This series invites everyone to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just curious.

Running & Philosophy: A Marathon for the Mind

Edited by Michael W. Austin

Wine & Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and DrinkingEdited by Fritz Allhoff

Food & Philosophy: Eat, Think and Be MerryEdited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe

Beer & Philosophy: The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth DrinkingEdited by Steven D. Hales

Whiskey & Philosophy: A Small Batch of Spirited IdeasEdited by Fritz Allhoff and Marcus P. Adams

College Sex – Philosophy for Everyone:Philosophers With BenefitsEdited by Michael Bruceand Robert M. Stewart

Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone:A Philosophical Tour de ForceEdited by Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin

Climbing – Philosophy for Everyone:Because It’s ThereEdited by Stephen E. Schmid

Hunting – Philosophy for Everyone:In Search of the Wild LifeEdited by Nathan Kowalsky

Christmas – Philosophy for Everyone:Better Than a Lump of CoalEdited by Scott C. Lowe

Cannabis – Philosophy for Everyone:What Were We Just Talking About?Edited by Dale Jacquette

Porn – Philosophy for Everyone:How to Think With KinkEdited by Dave Monroe

Serial Killers – Philosophy for Everyone:Being and KillingEdited by S. Waller

Dating – Philosophy for Everyone:Flirting With Big IdeasEdited by Kristie Miller and Marlene Clark

Gardening – Philosophy for Everyone:Cultivating WisdomEdited by Dan O’Brien

Motherhood – Philosophy for Everyone:The Birth of WisdomEdited by Sheila Lintott

Fatherhood – Philosophy for Everyone:The Dao of DaddyEdited by Lon S. Nease and Michael W. Austin

Forthcoming books in the series:

Fashion – Philosophy for EveryoneEdited by Jessica Wolfendale and Jeanette Kennett

Coffee – Philosophy for EveryoneEdited by Scott Parker and Michael W. Austin

Blues – Philosophy for EveryoneEdited by Abrol Fairweather and Jesse Steinberg

This edition first published 2010© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization© 2010 Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex,PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

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The right of Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cycling – philosophy for everyone a philosophical tour de force / edited by Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin; foreword by Lennard Zinn.

     p. cm. — (Philosophy for everyone)

   Includes bibliographical references.

   ISBN 978-1-4443-3027-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Cycling—Philosophy. I. Ilundáin-Agurruza, Jesús. II. Austin, Michael W. III. Title: Cycling – Philosophy for everyone.

   GV1043.7.C9 2010

   796.601—dc22

2010004888

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Michael would like to dedicate this to Karl, Jake, and the rollinghills of Kentucky.

Jesús dedicates this to the inventor of the wheel – who got us allon this path – and to his family, who patiently understands hiscycling passion.

LENNARD ZINN

FOREWORD

If you’ve picked up this book, there is no doubt that you adore bicycles and the freedom they offer. Whether you love the wind in your hair (okay, through the holes in your helmet), the sound of your own hard breathing and the persistent thumping of your heart as you climb steep mountains, the delicate maneuvering required to steer and power knobby tires through obstacles, the feel of countless impacts absorbed by your arms and your bike’s suspension system on a rocky downhill, or the concentration of hours spent mastering a stunt, you also love the journey your mind takes while on the bike.

Riding bicycles takes us away from the frantic rat race as well as from the mundane and uninspiring. It at times gives us uninterrupted opportunities to muse at length and at other times demands all of our concentration and focus. We are in control of our destiny in the moment, not at the whim of the next interruption coming our way in our want-everything-right-now world.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we embark on a philosophical journey at the same time we embark on a physical journey every time we throw our leg over our saddle. And even when we ride with no particular destination in mind, we still are steering a more defined path on the physical journey than we are on the philosophical one. There are a finite number of places that the former will take us, whereas there is no telling where we will end up on the latter one. That’s one of the reasons we ride, and that’s one of the reasons you are reading this book.

The authors of each leg of the philosophical journey incorporated within these pages are beckoning you down a new road in your lifelong search for great rides. Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Mike Austin have assembled an incredible group of tour guides to lead you down these roads, only accessible to those who travel on two wheels under their own power.

This journey will take you literally and figuratively to the ends of the earth. When it comes to commuting by bike as a way of life, John Harris and Robert Haraldsson could not be much closer philosophically, but geographically and meteorologically, Harris’s Texas could not be further from Haraldsson’s Iceland. Similarly, the leaderless common man declaring that he is not blocking traffic, but rather he is traffic in Zack Furness’s discussion of the Critical Mass movement could not be further from the drive for supremacy of the heroes, quasi-heroes, and anti-heroes of Scott Tinley’s, Gregory Bassham and Chris Krall’s, and Raymond Belliotti’s discussions of Lance Armstrong, Greg Lemond, and Marco Pantani. Finally, Belliotti’s, John Gleaves’s, and Bryce Dyer’s discussions of how best to apply rules on doping and bicycle design to bike racing are about as far away as you can get from the gleeful childish discovery of balance and freedom and the adult embrace of suffering, life lessons, and a woman’s touch found in the routes Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Mike McNamee, Pete Hopsicker, Tim Elcombe and Jill Tracey, Steven Hales, Steen Nepper Larsen, Heather Reid, Catherine Womack and Pata Suyemoto, and Mike Austin take us on. And throughout, Patrick Vala-Haynes spices up the journey with creative signposts along the way, some of which leave us gasping for breath before we even embark on the next road that beckons.

The journey calling to you in this book is arguably one you have been on ever since you first got the taste for balancing on two wheels. Physical balance and the freedom to roam far and wide were immediately paired with a sense of emotional balance and the freedom to express the wide range of emotions you felt while riding. The flights of fancy on your bike, dreams of great personal feats as well as of being able to ride in a world where everyone rode and cars were nowhere to be seen, all took you partway along every single route in this book. Now these routes you’ve started on will be further enriched by the eloquent words of Austin’s and Ilundáin-Agurruza’s incredible group of authors. Enjoy the ride!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No matter how dominant and great the cyclist, they all say the same thing: “Cycling is a team sport. Without my teammates I wouldn’t have won.” Well, this is even truer for the book you hold in your hands (which we hope feels as nice as a fine carbon handlebar, if a tad heavier). Cycling & Philosophy is an accomplishment that must be celebrated as the work of the peloton of contributors who have made it possible. They all took hard pulls, and no one skipped their turn at the front when we, the editors, put them to work, revision upon revision, with all kinds of big and minor adjustments to be made on the fly. And they all did this with a smile. This is truly their win.

The team at Wiley-Blackwell has been a formidable boon, not the least because they were willing to line up at the start line before anyone and then make sure we all crossed the finish line. Beginning with their fearless series editor Fritz Allhoff, who got the wheels rolling in the first place, following Brigitte Lee Messenger’s steady lead, and not forgetting Tiffany Mok and teammates who, always the consummate professionals, worked with us to make sure we delivered on time and in style. A heartfelt thank you goes to them all (and our fit cyclist hearts can give a big thank you).

Neither of us had ridden a tandem before (sometimes called the divorce bike for a reason), working so closely on a project that took the better part of a year. But, in our case, rather than discord we have found that it has brought out a true collaborative spirit where we learned to work with each other’s different talents. The only thing left is to decide whose turn it is to be the stoker now…

We also want to acknowledge our families for their unwavering support, cheering us on when we struggled, and never complaining when we went out to do “research” and work on the book, as we spun our cranks at the office or on the road. They were the perfect “team support car,” and without their help we would have had to hitch a premature ride back on the bed of a farm truck.

There are some people who over the years have helped make us into the riders and thinkers we are today. The ride down memory lane would be too long – if pleasant – to reflect here, but we celebrate the many teammates, coaches, mechanics, mentors, colleagues, and even riders we have met in chance encounters, who have left an indelible mark and given us more meaningful reasons to be on the road, rain or shine. This is also their triumph.

And it is also yours, dear reader! You have picked this book up, and without a flicker of doubt are joining our group ride. We are honored to count you as a fellow thoughtful cyclist. Godspeed, and may you enjoy and find wisdom in this philosophical Tour de Force you are about to ride!

Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza and Michael W. Austin

JESÚS ILUNDÁIN-AGURRUZAAND MICHAEL W. AUSTIN

GETTING IN GEAR

An Introduction to Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle I no longer despair for the future of the human race.

H. G. Wells1

Life is a like ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.

Charles M. Schulz2

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Albert Einstein3

Before the days of Wii’s, iPods, and cell phones chock full of useless apps, a child’s Christmas dream gift often was a bicycle. Given that you are reading these words, chances are that a (new) bike would still be your ideal “stocking stuffer.” Or maybe it would be so for someone you know, and for whose sake you are checking out this book. Well, Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone is a lot cheaper than a new bike, especially now that pricey carbon is de rigueur for any cyclist worth her cleats. More importantly, it comes specked with readings that will set readers’ minds on paths as liberating and full of surprises as those first two-wheeled escapades afforded. Indeed, for many our initial forays into freedom – often from parental oversight – rode on the sound of rubber on gravel, pavement, and dirt. The humble bicycle is a vehicle for enthusiastic independence and intellectually embodied inquisitiveness: pedal and probe, spin and delve, ride and discover. The world is a big place, geographically and existentially, and the view from the saddle is a valuable perspective that allows us to cover life’s ways at humanly fit speeds that nurture reflection and bring satisfaction from our very actions. Wells’s optimism in seeing adults on bikes is well founded and better saddled.

Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone takes fellow “cyclophilosophers” on an adventurous spin that explores life from that saddle. Perched on it, the wind on our face, we ponder as we pedal. Bicycles, cycling, and bike races are often the source of metaphors and proverbial quips. Isn’t life like riding a bicycle or a ten-speed bike after all? Maybe. But riding a bike is not enough to understand what cycling is about, much less life. We need to shift to the reflective side of the road. Different disciplines are fond of or celebrate cycling for different reasons. Science loves cyclists. Their masochistic, hamster-like compulsive nature makes them ideal subjects to gather physiological data: put them on a trainer and have them go at it, the more pain the better. Literature finds it ripe for dalliances of many sorts, taking readers for sometimes wild, always fascinating, rides, be it Mark Twain’s Yankee, Vladimir Nabokov’s Ganin in , Iris Murdoch’s numerous suitors in , or H. G. Wells’s Hoopdriver in . Even film finds it visually, dramatically, or comically rich, offering cult classics like , or . So, cycling has been around the block a few times, earning the respect of the arts and sciences. But philosophy? Doesn’t this stretch the elastic to the snapping point?