Today, as I pedalled slowly uphill to ride back down, then back up again, I realised there was no reason to be doing this at all. The hill did not demand it, and the bike did not require it. I had chosen it, and in choosing it, I had no excuse left.
Down with the sickness
Sartre felt that tracklocross was a superior form of creative endeavour and therefore an important part of existence. In Nausea, Sartre explores the idea that tracklocross bikes are more than mere being-in-itself and cross the boundary into conscious being-for-itself.
Roquentin, Sartre’s main character, comes to understand that words do not truly allow him to describe his bike; it is more than just purple, and the essence of purple we use to describe it is just a facade. When out riding, he hits some roots and realises that the roots existed first, before he attributed the essence of slippery to them.
Every pedal stroke that Roquentin makes after that drives him further into overthinking, and into realising that most people can’t face existence, so they try to hide from it by describing only its essence. He realises that we can use the power of being-for-itself to choose our essence, just as we choose the colour of our tracklocross frame.
We are then free to choose tracklocross.
This freedom comes with consquences though, much more than overloading your washing machine with dirty clothes. Our freedom to choose tracklocross makes most people anxious and ultimately leads them to ignore their freedom and buy a bike with gears. Big Bike uses this anxiety to sell you more GCN.
People do not want to be responsible for picking their own gear, and for being be in control of their own braking. People are too scared to brake with their legs that they deny themselves this freedom. If they accepted to ride fixed, they would be condemned to be free.
Free will is not a choice
Roquentin also wants to discover free will but feels tethered to the past. A past of reading bike magazines and, later, YouTube videos that promote cycling as a race and as a way to conquer your environment. Roquentin realises that he uses these old materials to drag him to Strava to justify his life.
He realises that both the past and Strava are merely interpretations and have no inherent meaning, despite what Strava’s marketing team wants you to believe. People are keeping themselves anchored in the past to avoid being in the present, which is too overwhelming. It is like taking a holiday from your responsibilities.
By rejecting the past, Roquentin now has no choice but to fully embrace his existence. While cycling around feeling superior to everyone in his town, Roquentin realises that existence is contingent, as there is no reason for anything to exist. If we started from scratch, tracklocross might never exist; we are now left in a vacuum of space.
This nothingness is actually existence. Humans are then accidental in a universe that does not care. Rather than allowing this to destroy us, we should just embrace tracklocross.
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