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After pondering over the practical feasability of this "idealistic' study in sustainable endurance and positioning it in the current philosophy of sport, I will reflect on a life virtuously lived in endurance, especially of the cycling kind. Starting off with challenging gravity and the first glorious unaided pedal strokes in the parental backyard. The first time with no hands. Followed up by widening circles: conquering villages, boroughs, provinces, countries, continents. And then in retrograde order back to the home base again, cultivating the garden, in search of destiny and origin by means of oriented repetition. On city bikes, racing bikes, time trail machines, mountain bikes and trekking bikes. Paved and unpaved. Alone or in a small group. Commuting, travelling, racing, climbing, gasping. Or just riding. Trying to find an own pace, and understanding that the good ascetic life comes with un-motorized reflexive-reflective moving around. To bring the motto of The Rider to memory: "Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me" (Krabbé T, The rider. Bloomsbury, London, 1978/2016, p. 1).

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-05294-2_8

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