James Hibbard > James's Quotes

“how through a combination of rigorous thinking and the self-discipline of being an athlete, I might give ‘style to my life’ and in the process avoid the sort of spiritual death that seems to befall so many long before their biological one.”
― James Hibbard, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels

“Like music, painting, or writing, cycling was an art, and becoming skillful was a pursuit with an ever-retreating horizon of proficiency which was shrouded in mystery.”
― James Hibbard, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels

“However, climbs like these don’t simply demarcate fitness, but also the cyclical passage of time. No matter how your life might change, that particular climb – your climb – remains a touchstone. As people are born and others die, you ride past the same features of the landscape – bearing witness to its changes just as much as yours: in early spring, leaves emerge from well-known trees only to wither in the gutter in the fall. While, during the last throes of winter, the brown hillsides gradually return to green – silently announcing that life has renewed itself and the worst of the cold and darkness has passed.”
― James Hibbard, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels

“Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.”
― James Hibbard, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels

“thinker who lauded the high mountains, and extolled the virtues of bravery, fresh air, and physical effort, there is simply no thinker better suited to the sport of cycling than Friedrich Nietzsche.”
― James Hibbard, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels

“Entering into a relationship with the bike, I don’t just regard it with the disinterested detachment of an observer, I use it. And in return it takes me out of my head – re-enchanting life and putting me squarely back into the world of lived experience.”
― James Hibbard, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels

“need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading, wear that same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look.”
― James Hibbard, The Art of Cycling: Philosophy, Meaning, and a Life on Two Wheels