Freedom in the Mud: Tracklocross, Fixed Gear, and the Grit of Existentialism: Part One

If one were to tell the average pedestrian, cyclist, or even philosopher that they had decided to descend a slippery woodland path at high speed on a bicycle with no gears and, crucially, no ability to coast or brake, the most probable response would be some mixture of disbelief and concern. This is a natural reaction. Fixed gear bicycles are rarely associated with off-road endeavours. Yet tracklocross, a subcultural form of cycling that combines the mechanical simplicity of fixed gear track bikes with the terrain of cyclocross, insists upon this improbable fusion.

To understand the appeal of tracklocross, one must delve deeper than mere mechanics or sport. The discipline operates on the boundary of absurdity and resolve, individual agency and environmental hostility. Riders voluntarily submit themselves to situations that border on the masochistic: powering up muddy inclines, descending loose gravel with no freewheel to coast, and risking bodily harm not for the sake of winning, but for the peculiar joy of surviving with dignity intact. It is here, amidst the grit, blood, and laughter of a trail, that we find fertile ground for an unlikely philosophical comparison. One might suggest, with only a small grin, that the tracklocross “athlete” is the Camusian absurd hero of the cycling world,Sisyphus with a drivetrain, pushing the absurd boulder of self-imposed hardship with stoic resolve and perhaps a beer waiting at the finish.

Defining Tracklocross and Its Discontents

Tracklocross is best understood not as a category of sport, but as a mode of being. Emerging in the late 2010s and early 2020s as a grassroots response to the perceived over-complication and elitism of mainstream cycling, it represents an intentional return to minimalism,both in terms of technology and philosophy. At its most basic, tracklocross is off-road cycling done on fixed gear bikes that lack many of the features deemed essential for rough terrain: no suspension, no gears, no disc brakes. To the uninitiated, this might sound like a design flaw; to the dedicated practitioner, it is the reason.

The fixed gear is central. Unlike its freewheeling cousins, a fixed gear bicycle requires constant pedalling. There is no coasting, no relief on the descents, and no neutral gear in which to contemplate one’s choices. Every metre of ground covered is the result of relentless muscular and mechanical effort. One cannot separate the rider from the bike, nor the action from its consequence. One might observe here a faint echo of Sartre’s dictum that “existence precedes essence”: the rider does not become a ‘tracklocrosser’ by mere possession of equipment; rather, they become one through action, suffering, and engagement with the terrain.

Unlike the choreographed precision of road racing or the hyper-regulated world of professional mountain biking, tracklocross races are characterised by an atmosphere of chaos and irreverence. Courses are marked out in scrubland, wastelands, or public parks, often with barely any regard for safety or decorum. Riders frequently wear casual clothing or mix cycling kits with punk aesthetics, reflecting a D.I.Y. ethic reminiscent of early skateboarding or hardcore music scenes. As in existentialism, freedom here is not a gift but a burden,riders are free to choose their lines, their bike builds, their level of commitment to technique versus sheer bloody-mindedness.

But with this freedom comes responsibility. And quite often, blood.

The Existential Groundwork,Freedom, Facticity, and the Pedal Stroke

Existentialism, broadly construed, is a philosophical movement that places the individual at the centre of meaning-making. In contrast to systems that posit objective moral structures or divine plans, existentialism contends that individuals must create their own values in a world devoid of inherent meaning. This leads to a central tension: the individual is radically free, yet this freedom is experienced as a source of anxiety and alienation.

For Jean-Paul Sartre, freedom was the defining characteristic of human existence, but also its curse. In Being and Nothingness, he introduces the concept of bad faith,the act of lying to oneself to avoid the responsibilities that freedom entails. The tracklocross rider, in this light, could be seen as a repudiation of bad faith. There is no escaping one’s choices mid-ride. If one has brought too bald a tyre, or failed to tighten the lockring, or chosen to attack a climb instead of dismounting, the result will be immediate and painfully instructive. The terrain offers no comfort, no illusions. It merely reflects, with brutal honesty, the consequences of one’s freedom.

Moreover, existentialism emphasises facticity; the inescapable conditions of one’s situation: one’s body, past choices, and the circumstances into which one is thrown. In tracklocross, facticity is the rut in the mud, the angle of the descent, the dull ache of legs already too tired, and the rain now intensifying. Yet the rider still chooses how to respond. Will they dismount gracefully, or heroically attempt to ride through the obstacle, risking personal and mechanical integrity? This moment of choice is the crucible of authenticity. The trail becomes, in a literal and metaphysical sense, the terrain of the self.

Camus and the Absurd Cyclist

Albert Camus, controversially and existentialist for the purpose of this article, despite his rejection of the label, provides a particularly apt lens through which to view tracklocross. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus presents the image of the Greek mythological figure condemned to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to roll back down each time. This futile labour becomes, for Camus, a metaphor for the human condition: we live in a universe that offers no ultimate meaning, and yet we must continue. Sisyphus would undoubtedly be in a Teams meeting if the ancient Greeks were alive now.

Substitute Sisyphus’s boulder for a fixed gear bicycle laden with mud, and the metaphor gains not only comic but also poignant clarity. The tracklocrosser climbs a hill not because it is rational, or efficient, or even enjoyable in a conventional sense, but because it is there,and because they can. There is no illusion of progress, no grand narrative of salvation through sport. The test will repeat, the terrain will remain indifferent, and the only certainty is suffering. And yet, like Camus’s hero, the tracklocrosser must be imagined happy.

Indeed, many riders speak of the joy found in those moments of perfect absurdity: pedalling downhill while trying not to be flung over the bars, wrestling traction on a loose incline, or sliding across a field with the resigned grace of a philosophy undergraduate misquoting Kierkegaard. These are not moments of meaning in the traditional sense. They are moments of engagement, of living fully in the present, of saying ‘yes’ to the absurdity of it all.

Camus writes: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.” One suspects that Camus, had he been born into the age of social media and poorly maintained bridleways, might have donned cut-off jeans and a mud-caked cycling cap and joined in.

After all, what is tracklocross if not a rebellion without appeal?

Authenticity, Irony, and the DIY Ethic

The existentialist call to authenticity resonates deeply with the tracklocross community, albeit in a manner tempered by irony. In existentialist terms, authenticity involves owning one’s actions and values without recourse to external justification. For Heidegger, it involved an acceptance of being-towards-death; for Sartre, it meant rejecting bad faith. In tracklocross, it involves building a bike that is wholly inappropriate for the task at hand,and riding it anyway.

Tracklocross bikes are typically cobbled together from scavenged parts, repurposed frames, and homemade solutions to problems most sensible cyclists would avoid altogether. The aesthetic is one of defiant practicality: a rack zip-tied to a track frame, a bottle cage bolted to a seatpost, a brake lever from an old BMX. These are not accidents. They are assertions of agency in the face of absurdity. Each mechanical compromise, each taped-over frame dent, is a statement: I built this, I chose this, I accept what it will (and won’t) do.

Humour here plays an existential role. Much like Kierkegaard’s concept of the ‘knight of faith’,who simultaneously embraces the absurd and acts in defiance of it,the tracklocrosser lives the contradiction. They laugh in the face of the terrain, the weather, their own limitations. This is not mockery but a recognition of the comic in the tragic, the absurd in the earnest. A rider may joke about their decision to run 25mm tyres on a muddy course, but in doing so, they assert the freedom of their choice. They are not victims of circumstance. They are co-authors of the absurdity.

Angst, the Fall, and the Fixed Gear Slide

No discussion of existentialism would be complete without reference to angst,the uneasy awareness of freedom, the vertigo of possibility. It is, according to Heidegger, the mood in which one becomes aware of Being itself. In tracklocross, angst is most often encountered at the top of a steep, technical descent. The front wheel points down, the rear wheel skids as soon as the rider applies back pressure, and every rational part of the brain whispers that this is a terrible idea. And yet, there is no gear to shift down into, no brakes to modulate with nuance. The only way out is through.

In these moments, the rider is confronted with a clarity rare in modern life. There are no algorithms, no distractions, no outside justifications. There is only the rider, the bike, the descent. The possibility of falling looms large, but so too does the possibility of success, of cleanly navigating the terrain, of transcending the limitations of man and machine through sheer will and balance. If one should fall,well, Kierkegaard would likely applaud the effort. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”

Moreover, there is an embrace of what Camus calls the leap, not into faith, as with Kierkegaard, but into action despite absurdity. The fixed gear descent, the wheelie over tree roots, the commitment to pedal when all muscle fibres scream to stop,these are leaps of faith in one’s embodied self. The fall is always possible, and frequently probable. But so too is the exhilaration of success earned not through technology, but through engagement.

Part Two is here