On Lao Tzu, simplicity, and single speed bikes

“Nothing is better for people who cultivate the tao than to resolutely simplify things.” — Sima Chengzhen, Treatise on Sitting Forgetting 

If Lao Tzu rode a bicycle, he would ride a single speed. Lao Tzu lived, if he lived at all, during the sixth century BCE. The Confucian influence of etiquette, ritual, and propriety on Chinese society had a stronghold that Lao Tzu perceived to be rigid, sterile, and even dangerous. Lao Tzu, and others like him, embraced the thought of escaping it all, retreating to nature, and embracing simplicity, contentment, and detachment. This alternative way of living would come to be known as Taoism and it offers wisdom to the modern cyclist. 

When I introduce my students to Taoism, I liken it to that scene from Point Break (1991) when Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) gives his campfire speech: “This was never about money for us. It was about us against the system, that system which kills the human spirit… to those dead souls inching along the freeway in their metal coffins, we show them that the human spirit is still alive.” Comparing Bodhi and Lao Tzu is campy and simplistic but, for the uninitiated, it works. 

Lao Tzu was concerned with preserving and cultivating the human spirit and allowing it to flourish. I think all bikes are a pretty good way of doing that. But he also understood that our obsession with efficiency, power, and speed (among other things) corrupts the primal forces of our intended nature. And I think we've over-complicated a lot of bike stuff.

Lao Tzu might see fancy SRAM Eagle drivetrains, electric dropper posts, and bicycles-that-cost-more-than-a-car the same way he saw fancy Confucian civilization: constraints which stifle, deplete, and even kill the human spirit. What we desperately need then is a return: a return to the simple, pure, even primal. Taoism, like a single speed bicycle, offered a return to primitive purity.

There is a beautiful simplicity of a tight chain around two gears, unadulterated with cassettes or derailleurs. There is a certain grace and dignity of the direct transmission of the power from the legs to the drivetrain, unassisted by a generous variety of gear ratios. And there is a profound joy of riding a bicycle unencumbered by excess gadgets, doohickeys, and the weight and maintenance that come with them. The return to single speed may not be primal, but it will make you feel like a kid again. 

Coincidentally, Taoist texts give high value to children. Lao Tzu honored children for their untainted simplicity. Children did not make things complicated. They just were. And when you were a kid, your bicycle just was. You didn’t think about carbon frames, full suspension, or expensive drivetrains. You just wondered how much air you could catch jumping over that ditch if you pedaled hard enough. “Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity… have few desires,” Lao Tzu wrote in the Tao Te Ching. “Ditch the derailleur, stand and mash the pedals…  have a lot of fun,” he might say today.   

This is, of course, an anachronism and it might even be pretty dumb to presume what kind of bike a super dead, possibly fake, ancient Chinese philosopher would have ridden. I do, however, think there is something true about how we have over-complicated so much of our lives, our bicycles included. 

I am trying to take Tao master Chengzhen’s teaching to heart. I have resolutely simplified my bikes, both single speeds: one hardtail for single tracking and bikepacking and my beloved tracklocross bike for everything else. 

Ride a bike. Ride in jeans. And if you really want to simplify (and really have fun), ride a single speed.

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