This is part two of my look into existentialist philosophy through the lens of tracklocross. Part one of this philosophy series can be found here.
The Ethics of Suffering and the Muddy Solidarity of the Field
To an outsider, tracklocross might seem a masochistic exercise in pointless discomfort. Riders labour through sodden grass, gravel chunder, and axle-deep puddles with a cheer that borders on the pathological. And yet, at the heart of this suffering lies a peculiar and deeply human form of ethics: one rooted in shared experience, personal responsibility, and mutual recognition. Existentialist philosophy, particularly in its post-war French iterations, is not simply about brooding isolation or heroic individuation,it is also concerned with how freedom manifests ethically in relation to others.
Jean-Paul Sartre, whose reputation as a solipsistic egotist is undeserved, was adamant in Existentialism Is a Humanism that existential freedom brings with it the weight of responsibility,not just for oneself, but for all humankind. “In choosing for myself,” Sartre writes, “I choose for all men.” That is, our actions project a model of human behaviour; they are a tacit endorsement of the kind of life we deem worth living. Tracklocross, then, offers a surprisingly robust model of this existential ethics.
In the middle of a race, with lactic acid flaring and calves speckled in clay, one might expect an ethic of pure competition,Darwinian, egoistic, unkind. But the opposite is often true. Riders slow down to check on those who crash, they lend tools mid-race, they offer shoulder pushes up steep inclines to those caught in the wrong gear ratio (which is to say, any gear ratio at all). These gestures are not mandated by any ruleset; they are spontaneous expressions of what Sartre called “being-for-others”,a recognition that one’s freedom is realised most fully not in isolation but in a shared project of absurd perseverance.
This ethic of mutual aid does not negate the absurdity of the task; it dignifies it. When the course is terrible, the weather apocalyptic, and the mud threatening to swallow bottom brackets whole, it is precisely the knowledge that others suffer too,and choose to continue,that gives the endeavour its existential weight. The tracklocross race becomes a site not just of individual becoming, but of communal affirmation. It is a muddy, wheeled version of Camus’s “invincible summer,” found not in the heart but perhaps in the communal tool bench or the shared swig from a flask at the finish line.
In a more Levinasian register,if one is feeling particularly philosophical,the face of the Other is encountered not in serene contemplation but when one is overtaken by a bearded Belgian man on slicks, muttering encouragement in Flemish, his own grimace echoing your own. In that moment, an ethical relationship is born.
One suffers, and is seen to suffer. And in the seeing, meaning is made.
Time, Repetition, and the Eternal Return of the Race Lap
Nietzsche’s doctrine of the eternal return is among the most powerful and unsettling images in existential thought. In The Gay Science, he poses a terrifying challenge: what if you had to live your life over and over again, in exactly the same way, for eternity? Would you curse the universe, or would you embrace your life so fully that you could affirm it eternally?
Tracklocross offers a peculiar and muddy echo of this metaphysical horror. The course loops. The climbs return. The ruts deepen. The laps are unnumbered, or at least feel so. One might well ask oneself, trudging once more past the same log pile or remnants of a building, “Have I been here before?” The tracklocross race, with its repetitive form and shifting internal content, dramatises the existential experience of time,not as a linear march toward telos, but as an unfolding of choices within the same horizon of recurrence.
Unlike road cycling or even traditional cyclocross, there is little pretence of linear progress in tracklocross. There is rarely a crowd to cheer, no sponsorship banners to flutter with promise, no formalised prestige. Time here is not externalised by stopwatch or placard; it is internalised, lived through the body. The sensation is not one of clock time, but of durée, as Henri Bergson might have it,a qualitative, flowing experience of temporality as modulated by intensity. A lap when one is fresh passes in an instant; a lap with cramping quadriceps stretches out into what feels like a geological epoch.
And yet, riders return to it. Again and again. Like Camus’s Sisyphus, or Nietzsche’s eternal yeasayer, they choose the repetition not because it promises novelty, but because it offers the space to affirm the absurd. The track is never quite the same,mud accumulates, lines shift, bodies fatigue,but the form recurs. The decision to ride it, again, becomes an existential affirmation. The tracklocrosser says yes to the mud, the gradient, the repetition. “Yes, I will suffer again. Yes, I will fall. Yes, I will find joy in the midst of futility.”
There is also, in the repetition, a kind of asceticism. In eschewing speed, flash, and technological supremacy, the rider commits to the discipline of recurrence,each lap a minor meditation, each obstacle a test of one’s relation to freedom. Is this not, in a deeply un-ironic sense, a form of spiritual practice?
The tracklocross race is a ritual, and each pedal stroke is a prayer whispered to the indifferent gods of the terrain.
Postmodern Irony and the Memeification of Suffering
We would be remiss not to acknowledge the peculiar postmodernity of the tracklocross subculture. Its embrace of the absurd is not only existential but aesthetic, self-referential, and often deeply ironic. Riders slap “THIS BIKE IS A MISTAKE” stickers on their downtubes, film Grams of themselves tumbling down embankments, and name their events things like “RUT ROT VOL. 3” or “MUD DEATH SUMMER BASH.” Social media is awash with images of bruised bodies, snapped frames, and grinning idiocy,all framed with the digital smirk of meme logic.
This irony is not mere detachment, however. It serves a vital existential function. In the face of late capitalist seriousness,of productivity metrics, carbon-counting apps, and wattage-optimised algorithms,tracklocross responds with derision. It refuses the premise that value is found in speed, or efficiency, or sleekness. The rider who posts a photo of themselves face-down in a bog, giving a thumbs-up, is not simply being funny. They are reclaiming their suffering from systems that would otherwise deem it unproductive.
The meme, in this context, becomes a tool of resistance. It is a form of meta-authenticity: the rider acknowledges the absurdity of their situation, and by laughing at it, reclaims it. Kierkegaard’s “knight of infinite resignation” might be at home here,not in silent faith, but in sardonic joy. Postmodern irony, far from undermining existential seriousness, recontextualises it for an era of digital absurdity. To ride a brakeless track bike through a bramble-choked ravine, film it, caption it “just fixed gear things,” and post it to a Discord server is, in its own strange way, an act of sincerity. It is the affirmation of the self as both ridiculous and real.
The danger, of course, is nihilism,a retreat into cynicism. But tracklocross largely avoids this. Its humour is not corrosive but communal. The laughter is not mocking, but inclusive. And the ride still happens. The mud still claims its dues. The bike still needs cleaning, the legs still need bandaging.
In a world where much is virtual and disposable, tracklocross insists: this matters, even if only because we choose to make it matter.
Embodied Praxis,Tracklocross as Lived Philosophy
It may seem presumptuous to claim that riding a bicycle through nettle-filled fields and over improvised jumps constitutes philosophical praxis. But if we take existentialism seriously, as a philosophy rooted not in abstract speculation but in lived experience, then tracklocross emerges not as a metaphor but as a medium.
Existentialism asks us to confront the absurd, to take responsibility for our choices, to live authentically in the face of meaninglessness. Tracklocross does not symbolise these imperatives; it enacts them. It is a discipline of choice and consequence, of freedom constrained by terrain, of individuality expressed through community. It is, quite literally, philosophy in motion.
The fixed gear enforces engagement. The terrain enforces humility. The fellow riders enforce responsibility. And the mud,always the mud,enforces reality. In such conditions, one cannot be elsewhere, mentally or physically. There is only the present, the choice, the moment. The bad line, the daring attack, the fall, the recovery,all become acts of meaning-making. There is no one to blame, no system to appeal to, no salvation on offer. And yet, it is joyous.
If Heidegger speaks of “being-towards-death,” or in German, “Sein-zum-Tode”, then tracklocross teaches being-towards-faceplant. It is a pedagogy of grit and grace, of building and rebuilding the self in relation to a hostile yet beautiful world. Like Camus’s absurd man, the rider defies the meaninglessness of the race by riding it anyway,and in doing so, creates meaning.
In a world increasingly digitised, abstracted, and commercialised, tracklocross is a reminder that existence is ultimately tactile, vulnerable, and earned. The existentialist might search for authenticity in cafés or lecture halls; the tracklocrosser finds it in the sharp ping of a rock against a downtube, or in the grunt of pushing a too-tall gear up a hill named by locals as “The Knee Wrecker.”
And so, in conclusion,but not finally, for this lap loops ever on,we might say: ride on, absurd cyclist. Your suffering is not in vain. It is the stuff of being. Your choices matter, even if only because they are yours.
The mud welcomes you, as it always has, and always will.
Fiefdom Tracklocross 
Leave a Reply