Konrad Paul Liessmann
THE FINAL TURN
Meditations on riding a racing bike
There are many ways of moving forward on a bicycle: slow or fast, on land, in the woods, in the city. There are also many different types of bicycle: city bikes, trekking bikes, old lady and “Waffenrad“ style bicycles, mountain bikes. But there is only one form of movement that so closely approaches the platonic concept of the bicycle, transforming with it known reality into an exemplary illustration of an immortal archetype: riding a racing bike.
Mind you, this is not to be a discussion about sport, competitions, nor about amateurs who go round circuits, nor about professionals who get wound up about the televised races. It is solely about fathoming the possibilities and limitations of self-propelled locomotion with a combination of efficiency and elegance, which, for the first time, allows a break in the monotony of everyday life and transcendence through the monotony of movement. The racing bike encompasses both the ways and means in one.
One can, of course, cycle in order to get from A to B; one can also ride a bike in order to be trendy; one can ride a bike to transport something on the back or in a pannier. For whichever reason a bike is used, it will, as with everything in the world, look as it does and be deformed by its use. All art and all things beautiful begin only where all intentions end. Only when the bicycle stops acting as a transport aid or vehicle, only when it has completely recovered its own sense of identity, does it appear in a purity that cannot be shadowed, not even by the sweat of another who abandons his own imperatives. And these are: gliding, clambering and - diving into the depths of being at the highest speed.[…]