Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2006, volume 24, pages 709 ^ 732

DOI:10.1068/d66j

A place of sense: a kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists

on Mont Ventoux

Justin Spinney
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX,
England; e-mail: j.spinney@rhul.ac.uk
Received 2 August 2004; in revised form 3 February 2005

Abstract. In this paper I explore the notion that our movements in and through a place define our
engagement with it and help to constitute it as a place. Concepts and concomitant interpretations of
place as a `situated' and contemplative experience have to date received much cultural geographical
attention. In increasingly mobile societies, however, I argue that mobility should be central to the
ways in which we conceptualise and understand the character and meanings of different spaces and
places. Although geographical exploration has begun concerning the politics and power relations of
the mobile subject, little attention has yet been paid to the experiences and spatialities generative
of the body-subject in mobility. Whilst acknowledging the importance of representations in directing
action, I strategically emphasise and explore the notion that we create meaning and belong in a place
according to how we are in a place. Drawing upon ethnographic work with racing and touring cyclists
in the United Kingdom and France, I consider how the conjoining of the person and bike and the
resulting embodied rhythms and kinaesthetic sensations of the movement of cycling are constitutive
of the character and meanings of particular places. Ultimately, in this paper I point to an under-
standing of the kinaesthetic and sensuous experiences of the hybrid subject ^ object (in this instance
`the cyclist') as fundamental in rethinking how people live, feel, and ultimately create meaningful
spatial relations.

Introduction
``The alpinist's will isn't prompted by the mountain. The alpinist's will is not so
petty that it needs something as random as the shape of the earth's crust in order
to exist. Even if the earth were as flat as a billiard ball, there would still be
alpinists: the true alpinists. The true alpinist would actually be ashamed to have
his will moulded by things of an order as low as mountains. So only one question
could be asked of the true alpinist: why do you never climb mountains?''
Krabbe (2002, page 89)
``Gradually my speed drops to 6mph and everything starts to close out around me.
All I can see is faded tarmac surrounded by whiteness, and even after 3 km the
weather station appears no nearer. I round another bend which fails to flatten as I
had hoped and it crosses my mind that I can't do this for much longeröI can't
even spare the breath to take a badly needed drink'' (diary, 12 July 2003). ``I say
and think hardly a word for the last 3 km. All my will is bent on rhythm; breathe
in, pedal, breathe out, pedal: it is almost unconscious'' (diary, 14 July 2003).
``It looks like the road goes right round the weather station ö another 400 metres
along and 20 up ö but as the road swings right, it ramps up and I don't mind
because I have just seen the end'' (diary, 12 July 2003). ``I get out of the saddle
and `sprint' to the top at 8 mph and that first beautiful moment when I no longer
have to put one foot in front of the other. As I climb the last 100 metres, I am
aware that the grimace I have worn for 21 km has become a snarl. A woman
walking down looks at me and I can't help thinking that her look says `why are
you doing this?' I don't know the answer'' (diary, 14 July 2003). ``At the summit,
a different world engulfs me: one where people talk, where my vision is not
710 J Spinney

tunneled by exertion, and where only one voice inhabits my head again. The pain
goes as if someone has switched it off, but my reason for being here has gone as
well'' (diary, 14 July 2003). ``I look out south at the view but it's just a view like
a postcard. I wonder why anyone would come up here just to see that?'' (diary,
12 July 2003).
Mont Ventoux, the mountain around which this narrative of ascent is focused, has
been a staple of the Dauphinë Libëreè stage race since 1935, but it was not until 1951
that it gained wider notoriety when it was first included on the Tour de France
itinerary as ``monumental decor'' (Fotheringham, 2002, page 203; see figure 1). Con-
stantly presented in the cycling press as one of the most dreaded climbs in the sport
despite its relatively diminutive stature,(1) Mont Ventoux has increasingly become an
attraction to cyclists of all persuasions, but particularly to road-racing and touring
cyclists. Both of these cultures and the representations through which they are
expressed and reproduced direct and organise practice in particular ways. With this
in mind, ascending or standing at the summit of Mont Ventoux, what might I, the
cyclistöor any other cyclistöthink, see, and feel? Perhaps I should profess my awe of
and respect for Mont Ventoux as one of the sacred test sites of the tour, and as the
mountain that took the life of British racing cyclist Tom Simpson during a stage of
the Tour de France in 1967 and which remains his `spiritual resting place' to this day?
Alternatively, I could admire the landscape that my elevated position allows and take a
few photographs like any other tourist, telling myself that the view was worth the
effort. Or perhaps I should dwell on the often intense pain of the ascent so frequently
mobilised in cycling publications to mythologise the `heroism' of those who race up
these mountains? But is this really what pain is all about? The people around me at the
summit do not look like heroes, and I do not think I have stepped out of myth recently.
As a schooled and reflexive cultural geographer perhaps I should contextualise Mont
Ventoux in terms of Petrarch's ascent of these very slopes over seven centuries ago?
Notably, Cosgrove (1998) and Schama (1995) have written regarding Petrarch's ascent
of Mont Ventoux, which testified ``to the rise of a new and restless subjectivity, striving
to occupy the centre of discourse'' (Wylie, 2002a, page 444). That may be so, but this
particular subject was anything but restless when he got back to his hotel room most
days. All of these meanings of Mont Ventoux as a place have some resonance; after all,
what was I doing there in the first place if my actions were not in part directed and
made meaningful by such cultural representations? But are such notions of place all
that being there is all about?
When I initially `discovered' Mont Ventoux it was through road-racing magazines
and through the lens of heroic endeavour and sacrifice built up around the Tour de
France and the death of Simpson. As I became more interested in these events as a
particular area of study I started talking to members of my local cycling club about
them, many of whom had ridden Mont Ventoux and some of whom had even known
Simpson. But what became apparent very quickly was that they were less interested in
such disembodied and contemplative meanings of the mountain, and more interested
in embodied notions of `doing' Mont Ventoux. Although I do not deny the importance
of wider extrasomatic representations in the creation of meaning, as Jackson so rightly
asserts in ``The abstract world of the hot-rodder'' (1997), participation in the landscape
brings with it a very different sense of place from one which is disembodied and
contemplative: one which produces a ``heightened alertness to surrounding conditions'',
and which reestablishes ``a responsivenessöalmost an intimacyöwith a more spacious,
(1) At 1912 m, Mont Ventoux is a relatively small summit compared with other Tour de France staples

such as the Col du Galibier at 2645 m.

A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 711

a less tangible aspect of nature'' (1997, page 205). From hereon in, I knew that if I was
to understand what Mont Ventoux meant to the cyclist, to uncover the nonreflexive
and prerepresentational sensations and experiences of doing, I would have to go there,
observe, talk, and ultimately participate in riding the mountain myself.

Figure 1. `The mythical Mont Ventoux' from Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson
by William Fotheringham, published by Yellow Jersey Press (reprinted by permission of the
Random House Group Ltd).
712 J Spinney

As my conversations with people who had previously ridden Mont Ventoux had
suggested, I found that I and many of the riders I talked to did not position the
mountain as a purely `touristic' and contemplative endeavour, nor did we position it
as one geared towards the recognition of a national hero and treasure. Instead, what
came to the fore was a place constituted by the sensations and movements of a
prostheticised body. Through the production of rhythms, the reembodiment of the
visual, and the intense muscular feelings of a `kinaesthetic burn', the mountain in
many ways becomes internalised as part of achieving a personal and bodily goal
(Lorimer and Lund, 2003, page 134). A dialectical relationship emerges where extra-
somatic representations are superseded and the immediacy of the senses in the context
of achieving a cultural goal comes to the fore to create the meaning of a place.
At the `top' of this paper, I dropped you at the summit in order to introduce the
central themes. Moving on from these understandings, in a brief theoretical section,
I then backpedal to the foot of the mountain in order to continue this narrative. Using
embodied accounts recorded whilst ascending Mont Ventoux, combined with ethno-
graphic observations and interviews with other riders, I trace an ascent (2) of Mont
Ventoux with reference to particular knowledges, technologies, and practices. To begin,
I look at the ways in which the rhythms of the ascent are produced in and through the
conjoining of both bike and body. As Rodaway points out, the ``cultural practices
and technologies of a society effectively mediate person ^ environment encounters and
largely determine geographical understanding'' (1994, page 145). Building from this
understanding I talk through the embodied sensations of the ascent and the ways in
which movement through the landscape prioritises our perception in particular ways.
Finally, I focus on the different potential meanings of one particular sensationöthe
intense kinaesthetic muscular burn experienced by the cyclist in the ascentöin order
to illustrate how an embodied approach to interpretation can uncover alternative
prerepresentational meanings of place. To paraphrase Lewis (2000, page 59), although
our relationships with the world are increasingly mediated by the textual and the
visual, practical engagement with the world presents the possibility for an unmediated
relationship where meaning is created and identity is formed in the act of doing,
away from prefigured representations of the social world. Hence what constitutes
the character of Mont Ventoux as a place are the activities undertaken within it
and the embodied sensations generated by these activities. In this paper I explore the
notion that we create meaning and belong in a place according to how we are in a place.
I argue that our movements in and through a place ultimately define our engagement
with it and constitute it as a place.

Mobility, the body, and technology

An enormous amount of attention has been paid to conceptualising meanings of place
in cultural geography, and much work in the humanist vein has added greatly to our
understanding of what constitutes a `place' as such (Cosgrove, 1998; Cosgrove and
Daniels, 1988; Daniels, 1993; Duncan, 1990; Matless, 1990; 1995; Nash, 1996). However,
although this work has added significantly to critical understandings of the landscape,
much of it has tended to see the landscape from a somewhat static perspective, whether
materially or interpretatively. Yet according to Jackson, the advent of new technolo-
giesöparticularly those that have enhanced mobilityöhas produced a shift away from
more contemplative and detached understandings of the landscape towards a more
active participation in the landscape (1997, page 202). By the end of the 19th century,
(2)This is actually an ethnographic fictionöa fictional strategy of condensing geographically and
temporally diverse data together to make conclusions more explicit and to highlight and frame
specific themes (Sparkes, 2002, page 1).
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 713

mobility, and in particular forms of mobility which allowed an immediate and

nonpedestrian participation in the landscape, had in many ways changed the way
that people perceived their environment.
People rarely experience places from a static point of view, and hence the meanings
generated are not those of one viewpoint or sensation. Howitt states that ``movement
and its implied spatiality are central to the creation of meaning in human experience.
Movement, the journey, the distance travelled, is always through cultural landscapes''
(2002, page 306). Cresswell defines mobility as `socialised movement': movement as a
``human geographical activity imbued with meaning and power'' (1999, page 176).
According to Urry, people dwell both at home and away: dwelling and defining
themselves in travel (2000, page 133). Seamon had previously suggested three aspects
of everyday movement: its habitual nature, the primacy of the body, and the dialogue
between body and place (Seamon, 1980 in Pile, 1996, page 51). As we travel through a
landscape we see and feel it in many different ways and yet little work has been
done regarding the relations of embodied movement, place, and meaning. Cresswell
notes that mobility has not been accorded the same consideration within geography
as landscape, place, or space (Cresswell, 1997, page 361, in Law, 1999, page 574). Geogra-
phers have long engaged with ideas of mobility relating to migration, but have seemingly
been suspicious about a practice which does not lend itself to disciplining and ordering
(Cresswell, 1999, page 176).
However, the focus on the `doing and acting'öthe practice of movement and the
movement of practiceöopens up a space by which to understand how meanings are
constructed through and within mobile practice. I contend that the experiences of
movement and mobility can be seen as constitutive of the meaning and character of a
place because of an ongoing dialectic between body and place. Cultures of mobility
and ways of being mobile thus become as constitutive of identity and belonging as any
historical and fixed notions of dwelling.
For Edwards and Imrie (2003, page 242), forms of mobility and movement (and
hence embodiment) dispose actors to behave in particular ways. In recent years there
has been an explosion of work regarding embodiment (Haraway, 1985; Lewis, 2000;
Nash, 2000; Nelson, 1999; Palmer, 1996; Pile, 1996; Thrift, 1997). As Wylie points out,
``recognition of the constitutive roles of embodiment, practice and performance in the
shaping of subjectivity is increasingly coming to the forefront of theoretical agendas''
(2002a, page 441). However, much of this research has arisen either from a psycho-
analytic perspective or from an external approach that takes bodies as texts (Marshall,
1996, page 3). Although there has been a tradition of insightful cultural geographical
work related to phenomenological understandings of place (Buttimer, 1976; Buttimer
and Seamon, 1980; Lorimer and Lund, 2003; Relph, 1970; Seamon, 1979; Seamon and
Mugerauer, 1985; Seamon and Zajonc 1998; Wylie, 2002a), little research has been
carried out regarding the embodied and sensuous experiences of different cultures of
mobility.(3) Rodaway, however, points out that ``the experience of the senses is the ground
base on which a wider geographical understanding can be constructed'' (1994, page 3).
Accordingly, I contend that the study of the mobile body can lend important insight
because it is the primary repository of the sense organs. Consequently, it has the
potential to highlight noncognitive and prerepresentational understandings of place.
Gibson's ecological theory of perception (1974) attached importance to the
environment as the product of a mobile observer (Gibson, 1974 in Rodaway, 1994,
page 19). Similarly, Urry has suggested that, despite the primacy of the visual, there
are many spaces and practices which militate against solely visual experiences, where
(3)A particularly notable exception is Seamon's concept of `place-ballet' (1980) which deals specifically
with the phenomenon of everyday movements.
714 J Spinney

the other senses which cannot be so easily turned off form a large part of experience
and a particular way of `seeing' (2000, page 103). Moreover, as Massey points out,
social relations are constituted by embodied practices, and it is easiest to imagine
this by means other than the distancing visual: ``spatialities are constructed as
well by sound, touch and smellöby senses other than vision alone'' (2002, page 463).
Tuan argues that place achieves `concrete reality' only when it is experienced fullyöthat
is, ``through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind'' (1977,
page 18). Thus, as Rodaway suggests, ``the body is an essential part of sensuous
experience: as a sense organ in itself, as the site of all the other sense organs and
the brain, and our primary tool for movement and exploration of the environment''
(1994, pages 26 and 31).
A phenomenology of place, then, is one in which all its material substance, colours,
shapes, sounds, textures, and smells are experienced. Distance, for example, is appre-
hended variously by ``moving from one place to another, by the need to project our
voice, by hearing the dogs bark at night, and by recognizing the environmental cues for
visual perspective'' (Tuan, 1977, page 16). As Tuan goes on to suggest, what can be
known as a reality is constructed from experiences; it is a creation of feelings and
thought, of doing and acting (page 9). Place is consequently conceived with more than
simply its functions intact; it retains its character and atmosphereöthe things that
ultimately make it a place (Norberg-Schulz, 1976).
Phenomenology sees the world's significance not as fixed and awaiting percep-
tion, but as emerging in its significance as the perceiver emerges. For Marks, the
body adopts a particular and habitual way of relating to the environment (Marks,
1999, page 129; in Edwards and Imrie, 2003, page 241). This is a fundamental point
as practice revolves around the ways in which the body develops habitual ways of
relating to broader social and cultural environments. Seamon (1980) argues for a
body-subject: a body which learns and incorporates habits and rhythms which are
called forth nonreflexively. This opens up the possibility that place is constituted
prerepresentationally.
According to Merleau-Ponty the body is the vehicle by which we come to have a
world; it is the first of all cultural objects and the one by which all others exist
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962; in Schmidt, 1985, pages 43 and 72). The point that Merleau-
Ponty wants us to understand here is that practice frees us from representation;
movement is a primary form of consciousness (Cresswell, 2003, page 276). Crossley
qualifies this, suggesting that body techniques are ``forms of shared practical reason,
pre-representational and pre-reflective forms of collective understanding'' (2004, page 38).
``Movement, explored phenomenologically, indicates that the body is intelligently
active and through this activity efficiently transforms a person's needs into behav-
iours. If one is to move effectively to meet the requirements of everyday living,
the body must have within its ken the required habitual behaviours. Without the
structure of body-subject, people would be constantly required to plan out every
movement anewöto pay continuous attention to each gesture of the hand, each
step of the foot, each start'' (Seamon, 1980, page 156).
This is not to say that there is a pure precultural perception of the world waiting to
be apprehended; rather, it is to suggest that, although always cultural, practice and
perception become learnt, controlled, and performed by the body-subject nonreflex-
ively as habits and rhythms. Thus the importance of the body-subject manifests
itself precisely because it illuminates the cultural performance of place. As Walter reasons,
``the real sense of a place, therefore, is twofold. On the one hand, people feel it; on the
other hand, they grasp its meaning'' (1988, page 2). I suggest that a focus on the per-
ceptions and movements of the cyclist can excavate contextualised everyday meanings
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 715

by illustrating the dialectical relationship between place, practice, and representation.

It is with this in mind that I ultimately focus on the kinaesthetic öthe embodied feeling
and experience of movementöas a way of understanding how people relate to their
environments and make sense of them. The body as the location of the sense organs
is conceptualised as central to the ways in which we create a place of sense and a sense
of place.
Following Ingold (2000) I argue for a focus on the body in terms of how it develops
according to what it affords and is afforded within the landscape. Yet it is not only the
body that needs to be accounted for in most modern mobile practices; technology also
plays a central role in defining the capabilities of the human body. Affordances,
certainly for humans, are not simply between bodies and environments, they are
mediated by other everyday entities and technologies. These reshape the affordances
of an environment by allowing new possibilities for the body whilst closing down
others (Michael, 2000, page 112). Although technology is often considered simply as
a means to meet practical demand, the character of a place depends on `how things
are made' or experienced and is consequently determined by the technical realisation
of a place (Norberg-Schulz, 1976).
McGinn suggests that technology is a knowledge-based and fabricative form of
activity informed by its practitioner's goals and geared towards expanding what is
humanly possible (McGinn, 1978, page 190; in Ingold, 2000, page 299). In modern
society it is rare on a day-to-day level for the human body to remain unprostheticised
by various technologies. In a technological practice such as cycling, can the habitus or
the limits of the body be seen to be independent of the machine by which they are
shaped and extended? As five-times Tour de France winner Jacque Anquetil rightly
claimed, the rider is both bike and person: a hybrid of both subject and object
(Anquetil quoted in Krabbe, 2002, page 5). There is a continuing cultural conjoining
whereby technology and the body are joined and machines come to assume a level of
organicism, and bodies are increasingly redesigned using technology (Balsamo, 1996,
page 3). Game elaborates, pointing out that ``the human body is not simply human.
Through interconnectedness, through our participation in the life of the world,
humans are always forever mixed'' (2001, page 1). The human organism modifies itself
with technologies that produce, temporarily, a new organism: a hybrid object ^ subject.
Thus objects must be seen as crucial to the ways in which subjects effect agency as an
accomplishment. Accordingly, the social and cultural cannot be analysed in isolation
from the natural, as objects cannot be separated from subjects. Indeed, ``complex
mobile hybrids are shown to be of utmost ... importance'' (Urry, 2000, page 14).
I suggest that there is a need for a phenomenology of the practices of mobility which
foregrounds not only the body-subject at the centre of the lifeworld but also the objects
which inform and shape its movements. Such an approach seeks to understand the
production of space in everyday mobility at the level of the body, but in conjunction
with technologies.

Embodied research
So how does the researcher engage with and operationalise such an agenda? As
McCormack asks, ``how, when such movement is often below the cognitive threshold
of representational awareness that defines what is admitted into serious research,
does one give a word to a movement without seeking to represent it?'' (2002,
page 470). McCormack is essentially asking two questions here, and Tuan offers
what is perhaps a useful starting point for the first of these in suggesting that,
``to experience in the active sense requires that one venture forth into the unfamiliar
and experiment with the elusive and the uncertain'' (1977, page 9). To this end, my
716 J Spinney

research methodology was tailored to emphasise, as Seamon (1980) suggests, a careful

reflection on one's own movements in conjunction with accounts of movement as
described by others. In order, therefore, to narrate and critically discuss some of
the central skills, understandings, and experiences of ascending Mont Ventoux, this
paper is centred around an empirical narrative drawn from ethnographic fieldwork
conducted at Mont Ventoux in Provence and with an amateur road-racing club in
Surrey (UK) in the summer of 2003.
Most cyclists that I met whilst ascending Mont Ventoux were club cyclists (whether
tourers or road racers) and thus training and researching with a cycling club prior to
ascent gave me an important insight into the myths, practices, and representations that
surrounded and (re)produced Mont Ventoux. Club members offered advice on
(amongst other things) gearing, training, eating, timing, clothing, and the potential
difficulty of the three possible ascents of Mont Ventoux, which served to orientate
me towards the goal of ascent both intellectually and materially. Training with a cycling
club also equipped me physically for the challenge of researching in the saddle.
Lorimer and Lund (2003) suggest that the pace of walking is well suited to
ethnographic research, but cyclingöand particularly strenuous cycling often at high
speedsöis less well suited. Researching in the saddle was therefore as much about
building up the skills and endurance to ride in close proximity to other riders at high
speeds over long distances as it was about listening and asking the right questions.
Without the `miles in my legs', as it were, I very much doubt I would have lasted a day,
let alone a week, of researching on Mont Ventoux. In this way, physical training was
equally important to the research and methodology, as both a means and object of
insight.
Because of my need to research both body and technology, a further central
methodological concern in researching this paper was the need to keep the socialities
of cycling in the context of their inherent mobility as far as possible. I wanted to
know what the rider, the hybrid subject ^ object, felt and experienced, not simply the
person. In order to talk to riders, as opposed to talking to people, about cycling I
needed to keep the context of riding and therefore talk to cyclists whilst cycling.
Through recording embodied accounts of ascending the mountain in conjunction
with contextualised interviewing,(4) many of the ideas in this paper emerge out of,
or provide an enriched understanding of, the experiences and meanings for cyclists
at Mont Ventoux. As Lefebvre comments, the rhythmanalyst, for example, must
first listen to his own body: ``he learns rhythms from it, in order consequently to
appreciate external rhythms'' (2004, page 19). Palmer qualifies this, suggesting in her
ethnography of French racing cyclists that it is only ``by actively participating in the
painful practices of everyday life that the agony of cycling becomes comprehensible''
(1996, page 135).
This research thus foregrounds a kinaesthetic and embodied approach to inter-
preting the practices I had witnessed other riders engage in and talk about. In contrast
to an interpretation of cycling practices using textual representations, this approach
allowed an embodied and participatory interpretation where my whole body was
employed in understanding the meanings of the ascent. I argue that the immediacy
of insight that such an approach allows is essential to the project of understanding
space and place as fluid and contextualised constructions.

(4)My conversations with cyclists on the move were recorded via `bike-microphone' (simply mini-
disc and lapel microphone) and transcribed as soon as possible. My research diary incorporated
transcriptions of my own recorded feelings and comments during training and ascending in
conjunction with post-ride reflection.
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 717

Hybrid rhythms
``A rider, said Anquetil, is made up of two parts, a person and a bike. The bike, of
course, is the instrument the person uses to go faster, but its weight also slows him
down.''
Anquetil (quoted in Krabbe, 2002, page 5)
``I awake far too early at about 6am. I feel a lot better for not having touched the
bike yesterday; I can feel it in my legs'' (diary extract, 14 July 2003). ``Clicking into
my pedals and putting the bike in a low gear, I cruise down out of Sault towards
Monieux. I've consulted my 1 : 25 scale map and know it's not far to Bedoin; the
incline I'm about to face is the only one I need concern myself with as the rest is a
net drop in altitude of around 500 m in 20 km. I put the bike straight into first and
find a plodding rhythmöno point in wasting my legs if the ascent from Bedoin is
as bad as everyone says'' (diary, 16 July 2003). ``I ride through La Gabelle and
Flassans arriving in Bedoin after 34 km. I stop at a fountain to top up with water
then follow the signs and the cyclists towards Ventoux. I notice a group of about
30 or 40 riders with the same `Tour 2003 SA Party AnimalsöPrice Waterhouse
Coopers' cycling gear on. They all shoot past me but I don't take the bait; I know
what to expect now and how to climb the mountain. A sign lets me know that
I have 22 km to go. Time passes. It's just over 40 minutes since I left Bedoin and
the road has ramped up to the 1 in 10 I was told it would. I've started overhauling
and talking to some of the South Africans which dims the pain a little'' (diary,
16 July 2003).
Pinch and Bijker (1984) and Rosen (2002) suggest that technology emerges out of
the contexts in which it is used, signifying a profoundly social construction whereby
objects take on their significance by their incorporation into a characteristic pattern
of day-to-day activities. When the detail of the bicycle is situated within the cultural
and social context of its use, technology is seen as contingent and developing
within everyday practices. Montain bikes, for example, were not invented to turn
around the ailing fortunes of the bicycle industry; they were created by enthusiasts
who wanted to ride where a normal bike would not let them (Rosen, 2002, page 133).
Accordingly, the tool extends the whole person rather than being a mechanical add
on, delivering intentional action rather than merely bodily force (Ingold, 2000,
page 319).
Game argues in the case of horse and rider that, in living with the image of the
rider, we entrain with it, and in so doing certain rhythms are pronounced (2001,
page 3). I argue for a similar entraining between bike and person. There are of course
obvious differences, yet, still, the road bike allows particular possibilities and feelings
that would otherwise be unobtainable for the person. Ingold argues that cycling is
as evolutionary as walking, imprinting us anatomically and rendering the cyclist as a
different kind of creature to the walker or car driver (2000, page 376). The bike and
body are thus produced as one: refined and maintained in conjunction with each other
through and within movement. The cycling anatomyöof both bike and riderödoes
not come ready made; it is crafted through the cultural practice of cycling. There is a
need, therefore, to study artifice rather than artifacts: knowledges that are largely
implicit and ``deeply embedded in the particularities of experience'' (page 369). That
is to say that cyclists come into being through a process of development whereby they
acquire ``the skills appropriate to the particular kind of life they lead'' (page 379).
Consequently, I argue for an object and subject developing in conjunction with one
another through practical use.
718 J Spinney

``I say goodbye to Alain and attempt to settle back into a rhythm ... I drop off the big
ring and settle on 34617 (5) for the moment. After a couple of miles I see my first
white and yellow marker-stone: altitude 800 and something metres, 21 km to the
summit. Soon after, the road begins to steepen and I move down to 34623'' (diary,
12 July 2003).
In this section I want to talk through the rhythms of the ascent, and the ways that
these are structured by and structuring of both bike and rider. Rhythms are intrin-
sic to movement but are not innate: certain conditions must be met to maintain
rhythms; technologies and bodies must be honed and maintained to enable continuity.
Movement and the patterns and rhythms it takes are produced by the style of mobility.
John points to this when he says that ``the road is all about power and control and
being smooth, having rhythm. Off-road is different, needs different skills'' (transcription,
26 June 2003).
Merleau-Ponty suggests that we inhabit rhythm: ``a movement is learned when the
body has understood it, that is, when it has incorporated it into its `world'... it is to
allow oneself to respond to their things' call [ ... ]. Motility... is not a handmaiden of
consciousness'' (1962, page 139, in Game, 2001, page 8). Seamon (1980) qualifies this by
pointing out that the body-subject is capable of directing movement intentionally, and
that, without the ability to act noncognitively, every aspect of everyday life would
require constant thought. Thus, noncognitive rhythms become one of the key ways
in which we inhabit and produce space. According to Lefebvre, one can understand
the production of space only through rhythms: the intrinsic repetitive organisation
which produces the everyday world. He goes on to suggest that, ``everywhere where
there is interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy, there is
rhythm'' (2004, page 15). Thus, it is through rhythm that riding is inhabited.
There are remarkable similarities in riding the bike to the description of riding
horses given by Game. Indeed, she suggests that if the horse is not `into it' then rhythm
becomes unobtainable, or, equally, if the person is a novice then he or she will be `all
over the place' (2001, page 8). Similarly, in bike riding, the rider must feel for these
rhythms initially, concentrating on breathing and feeling individual muscles to create a
smooth pedal stroke with each limb until the muscles are formed so that they pull and
push in the right directions.
``well the technique obviously is to, as soon as you see a hill, change down, set your
rhythm, set your pace, shut your mind off quietly to what's going on externally,
and just control your breathing very, very carefully, and you'll see that they'll all
flash past you but within a minute they're coming back and you'll keep your
card with them. Don't lose your concentration, and don't lose your pace and you'll
be with them, you'll be there'' (Brian, transcription, 30 June 2003).
Ultimately, and as Game suggests, ``maintaining connection and rhythm doesn't
work through the exercise of will power, but requires a mindfully embodied way of
being'' (2001, page 8). As Crossley points out in the case of circuit training, the body
learns to feel rhythm, grasping it and understanding it, `tuning in' to the activity and
`tuning out' of the everyday attitude (2004, pages 46 and 53). The shift from tuning out
to tuning in is exemplified in Brian's account of ascent above and my own below.
Effortless pedaling requires endless practice, but when it is achieved the rider appears
to inhabit a rhythm. There is, as Le Breton so eloquently puts it, ``a melting of self into
action'' (2000, page 3).
(5)This is the language of gears used by road racers. The 34 denotes the number of teeth on the
front chain ring, and the 17 the number of teeth on the rear wheel sprocket. The smaller the ratio
(more commonly expressed in gear inches) the easier it is to turn the gear, but the slower the bike
goes.
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 719

``I've been on the go for over an hour now, and time has stopped for me; I inhabit a
repeated pedal stroke that may never stop for all I know. It just remains to be seen
who cracks first: me, or the mountain'' (diary, 16 July 2003).
Once the body and bike have learnt how to move forwards continually, the rider
inhabits a moment of repetitive difference, where the external landscape appears to
take on the characteristics of the repeated action: always and never changing, just as
each pedal stroke is seemingly the same but never the same twice. Thus the rider and
the landscape are assembled in the practice of ascending: they are assembled by
rhythms.
``This is starting to get worse now, nothing I can put my finger on but I'm slowly
starting to crack. After what feels like an eternity I see the 1065 m marker.
Simultaneously, I see and feel the road ramp up, and admitting defeat change to
my lowest gear, 34625'' (diary, 12 July 2003).
As the gradient increases, rhythm becomes harder to grasp as the body slows and
the muscles tire. Of all the bits of the modern racing bike, and perhaps any bike, it
is the gears which allow the maintenance of rhythm, as Seb highlights: ``I was on my
39625 and I still couldn't get anything [mimes slowly turning cranks], get any higher''
(transcription, 26 June 2003). Gearing is felt by the rideröthe machine asking the
rider to maintain a circular movement, perhaps lower or raise the speed of the rider
but maintaining movement of the legs and lungs at a manageable pace. These rhythms
are possible precisely because ``at the heart of the bicycle is a circle. Numerous
components, the shape and function of which consist of circles, come together to
form the bicycle. Riding a bike is a cyclical exercise that activates the body's circu-
latory systems'' (Perry, 1995, page 3). On every training ride, and on every ascent of
Mont Ventoux, gearing was constantly mobilised as one of the key languages of ascent
by everyone that I spoke to, particularly if the person was actually riding at the time.
``I catch another of the South African riders, Judith. As we chat she glances down at
my back wheel and asks me `what size sprocket have you got on the back?' I reply
`it's only a 25', which might be impressive if it weren't for the 34 on the front. She
replies that, `we've all put on satellite dishes; I've got a 29... a couple of our guys
have got as big as a 32 or 34 on the back!'' (transcription, 16 July 2003).
The gearing of the bike becomes completely personal and reflects the rider's fitness
and his or her goals within the landscape. As Woods suggests, ``in contrast to the
production-line sameness of the professional's issue, the average enthusiast's bike
is the sum of carefully weighed decisions. It is thought out and pieced together
and therefore becomes a very personal statement'' (2001, page 35). This flexibility and
personalisation allows the language of gearing to extend to the rider rather than simply
to the bike. Indeed, the very way in which Judith says she `has put on' a 29 suggests
she has modified herself and her capabilities rather than simply those of an object. My
own modifications were no different, and were calculated according to my knowledge
of the gears I use on smaller climbs at home and to my level of fitness. For Mont
Ventoux I sacrificed my three biggest gears öand thus top-end speedöfor three
smaller gears to enable my body to maintain a rhythm against the gradients. Such
modifications illustrate one way in which culturally mediated technologies come to
shape the rhythms and habits of the body-subject.
Game (2001) suggests that, in horse riding, the saddle is the main point of con-
nection. In bike riding, although the saddle is obviously important, I argue that it is
the feet and legs which become the primary interface. As a result, another component
which demonstrates the intimate nature of the relationship between bike and rider is
the pedal, which many riders talked about in terms of promoting fluidity and comfort.
720 J Spinney

Figure 2. ``The clip-less pedal'' from ``We have the technology'' in Cycling Weekly Tour Tribute,
published by IPC Media (reprinted by permission of IPC Media).

Initially just a platform for the shoe, the modern `clip-less' pedal is designed in
conjunction with the shoe to create what is essentially one interfacing part, which
allows the rider to pull up on the pedal as well as push down (figure 2).
The main characteristics of the clip-less pedal are that it is easier to get in and out
of than a traditional toe-clip pedal and energy transfer through the pedal is more
efficient. It is also more comfortable because the mechanisms which attach the foot
to the pedal are designed into the sole of the shoe (Cycling Plus 2003, number 143,
page 89). However, because of this, the shoes make walking a somewhat hazardous
practice. In any other context the clip-less pedal could be seen as impractical, danger-
ous, and uncomfortable as the enquiries of one lady at a training-ride tea stop illustrate:
``What are those things on the bottom of your shoes? Isn't that dangerous? Do your
feet come out easily?'' (transcription, 28 June 2003). Yes, your feet do come out easily
but not during the action of pedaling and this is precisely the point. In the action of
pedaling the pedal promotes rhythm: the body follows the circular trajectory of the
cranks ever more closely. As Mandy pointed out in relation to her ascent of Mont
Ventoux, ``no I didn't stop ... I was concentrating on keeping a good rhythm, and I
didn't want to have to try and get my feet back in the pedals on such a steep section''
(transcription, 24 May 2003). Mandy highlights here that her pedals were an essential
factor in maintaining the rhythm of ascent. By degrees the rider becomes more a
part of the machine: the fact that you cannot detach from the machine accidentally
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 721

further disciplines the body to it. As Ingold suggests, ``the artefact, in short, is the
crystallization of activity within a relational field, its regularities of form embodying
the regularities of movement that gave rise to it'' (2000, page 345). Hence rhythms are
a product of the conjoining of the bike and body, honed in the practice of doing and
feeling. The bike as a machine is seen to afford certain possibilities for action for those
``whose experiences and current framework of relevances predispose their perceptual
system to identify those affordances and whose corporeal schema or habitus includes
the practical know-how required to work the machine'' (Crossley, 2004, page 50).
Of course, the development of the rider's habitus and practical know-how are insepar-
able from the development and affordances of the machine. The longer the rider and
machine have to develop together the more pronounced and intimate becomes
the symbiosis. The artefact evolves within a `field of forces' where the design for the
artefact might set the parameters of development but does not prefigure the form
(Ingold, 2000, page 345). Studying objects within their contexts is thus shown to be
vital in order to uncover the ways in which they influence movement, perception and
meaning.

Reembodying vision
In this section I want to develop the twin themes of context and perception further. In
order to do so I talk briefly regarding some of the senses individually before going
on to illustrate how the process of ascending utilises them in conjunction, attuning
them to identify particular affordances in the environment in order to successfully
negotiate it. I argue that an understanding of the ascent which focuses on all the senses,
and particularly on the kinaesthetic, offers up a prerepresentational interpretation
which does not rely on visuality and textuality to impart meaning.
``As I round another right hand bend, I notice a viewing point for tourists to
take in the vista and take photographs'' (diary, 18 July 2003; see figure 3). Of course,
the mountain `experience' of the cyclist could still be represented in terms of views
and panoramas. Frank, whom I met at Simpson's memorial, noted the importance
of travelling slowly to admiring the view: ``we've just been travelling slowly and
seen some magnificent scenery'' (transcription, 16 July 2003). After riding the recent

Figure 3. A view of Mont Ventoux from Sault (source: author's collection).

722 J Spinney

Granfondo Campagnolo randonnëe (6) in the Italian Dolomite mountains, Tony

commented that: ``the scenery is lovely when you're going up the climbs'' (transcription,
28 June 2003). Similarly, John wryly noted when talking about one of the climbs of the
Granfondo that: ``I had plenty of time ... I was so slow... I could have got out an easel
and some paint, and painted a picture!'' (transcription, 28 June 2003). Such observa-
tions (literally) point to the traditional sense of vision as being a dominant and largely
contemplative mode of apprehension. As Irigaray argues, ``more than other senses, the
eye objectifies and masters. It sets at distance and maintains at a distance'' (Irigaray,
1978, page 50, in Rodaway, 1994, page 123). However, Ingold refutes this, suggesting
that vision has not produced objectification but has been enslaved and reduced in the
service of objectification (2000, page 253).
In contrast to John and Tony, Brian's account of ascent points to a different
prioritisation for vision: ``I tend to shut off and concentrate very much on my rhythm
and my breathing and so you don't get much chance [to look around]'' (transcription,
30 June 2003). This is clarified by my own exertions: ``all I look at is the patch of
tarmac 3 metres in front of my wheel. Every so often I look up to see if the road
levels off. Nothing seems to change; the pain has plateaued for the moment'' (diary,
14 July 2003). Using a visual metaphor Wylie qualifies this, suggesting that, ``as the
road gains further upward bent, so it becomes like a tunnel'' (2002a, page 449). Wylie
argues that, as you ascend, visibility flips and you cease to see the mountain; instead
you see from it. A shift in sensibility occurs from eyes to legs, from contemplation
to action (page 449). Whereas Tony and John suggest that at times they were looking
at the mountain, Brian and I point to this idea of seeing from the mountain, suggesting
a spatiality that is neither simply visual nor contemplative.
``I see another marker announcing what I can already feel. The gradient has increased
to 12.1%. After just five minutes of this I start to crack; I just can't do it. My
breathing is slow and laboured, my speed is pitiful at around 8.5 ^ 9.5 kph. It is
forward motion, just. I pass into the shade for a while and climb out of the saddle
to ease the pressure on my rear. I pull up on the pedals to relieve the pressure and
pain in the balls of my feet'' (diary, 14 July 2003).
The sensations of the muscles and the body are the prevalent indicators of the
ascent here. In a sense, the environment and what it affords become internalised,
as pain and fatigue increasingly foreground `interoception' (what is within) rather
than `exteroception' (what is without). As Crossley points out, perception responds
to modulations and inflections in the environment to which it is attuned: ``it is very
difficult to focus upon anything else when one's legs or arms are burning and
approaching exhaustion'' (2004, page 55). Rodaway further elaborates, suggesting
that ``a certain sense may appear to play a dominant role in characterizing a specific
experience or in establishing a general framework for geographical understand-
ing, which is followed through, filled out and clarified by the other senses'' (1994,
page 36).
``Time and tarmac pass. I hearöthe whir of my gears, the constant rhythm of
my breathing, the contact of tyres and asphalt; I feelöthe dull ache in my legs,
the emptying and filling of my lungs. There is nothing to do but fix your eyes
on the road and think of something else'' (diary, 14 July 2003).
``I see the 1km to le Chalet Reynard marker and finally the gradient eases to a mere
6.6%. I take a good drink and drop down a gear. I stand out of the saddle and

(6)
This is a timed event in which participants go off at intervals and attempt to cover the course as
quickly as possible. The Granfondo Campagnolo is held every year over a course of between 100 km
and 200 km depending on ability.
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 723

Figure 4. ``Writing the road'', from the Grenoble Cycling Pages (Standring, 2004) (reprinted by
permission of Russell Standring).

stretch the bits that hurt the most. I round Chalet Reynard in a 34619 and attack
the last 6 km of 1 in 10, changing up as I go, out of the saddle'' (16 July 2003).
``The tree cover disappears, replaced by the sun-bleached white Lauzes which heighten
the furnace feeling of the landscape. I look up and I can see the weather stationöit
looks closer than 6 km but I can see the road snaking away from me. I ... feel the road
steepen further. I shift back to 34625. With my vision focused downwards I notice
the road writing for the first timeöall of the greats are here many times over'' (diary,
14 July 2003; see figure 4).
At particular moments an understanding of Mont Ventoux comes to the fore
where it ceases to be picturesque or sublime; instead, it becomes a landscape where
``everything looks the same'' without being homogenous or static (Wylie, 2002b,
page 255). Although important to the character and success of the ascent, vision
ceases to be either objectifying or the dominant mode of apprehension. A reembodi-
ment and rebalancing of vision alongside the other senses of the rider occurs in the
ascent. Indeed, all of the accounts I received from club riders regarding various ascents
724 J Spinney

of Mont Venoux positioned the cyclist within the landscape in far more than a simply
visual sense. The sense that comes to the fore is the kinaesthetic sense as the feelings
in the muscles and heat receptors of the body begin to guide the operations of the
other senses:
``It's a long climb, it's not the toughest of climbs by any means but, you go through
the trees nicely shaded, and then you suddenly come out onto the mountain, and as
you come on to the mountain, it's white and glittering and glaring, and suddenly
the heat seems to go up and the air seems to get thinner, and as you come out of the
trees you notice the change ... and those last few kilometres to the top in this glaring
white surface and everything else. I can remember, you could see the heat haze
coming off the road in front of you ... and when I got to the top I was in another
world, my head was swimming'' (Brian, transcription, 30 June 2003).
Brian's narrative offers an account of ascent which plays to numerous senses,
including temperature sensing, kinaesthesia, and vision. The character of the ascent
is brought to life not just by describing a landscape visually but by describing the
sensations of moving through it. Ingold (2000) suggests that vision alone does not
allow the world to be taken in from its fixed standpoint; it is mobility that allows its
apprehension, and hence a use of the array of senses beyond the visual alone. Certainly,
vision would never reveal the landscape in the way it does if it were not for our
movement through the landscape. Movement allows us to incorporate objects into
structures of tactile awareness (page 259), and thus becomes crucial to any matter
of perception. Similarly to Gibson (1968), Merleau-Ponty argues that we consult the
world to orient movements (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, page 162; in Ingold, 2000, page 263).
In the following discussion I want to demonstrate how such a reembodiment of vision
alongside the other senses works to shift an understanding of it away from distance,
objectification, and contemplation and back towards its role in achieving the ascent as
one of an array of senses which the rider uses and experiences.
``Breathing, staying in the saddle, getting out of the saddle, using different muscles,
starting to hurt, but not unbearable, just going into the shade ... calves starting to
hurt, trying to find a rhythm, entering the shade, breathing very laboured, breathe,
9 mph, into second gear, one gear left ... out of the saddle, corner coming up, looks
like a ramp, all I can see is road ... thighs burning'' (transcription, 12 June 2003).
Shade cannot be sensed by heat receptors of the body until the body is within the
shade. My eyes cannot feel the cool of the shade, but they direct my body toward it
because the body knows that this will help cool it. These actions are noncognitive;
the eyes, legs, and heat receptors of the body working without conscious thought to
direct action. This points to a reprioritisation of the senses where the visual is relegated
in the project of movement. ``As perceivers we select from all the stimuli falling on our
senses only those that interest us, and our interests are governed by a pattern-making
tendency'' (Douglas, 1966, page 36; in Ingold, 2000, page 158). Hence, we perpetu-
ally monitor our involvement and adjust our movements accordingly (Ingold, 2000,
page 196). In this instance the body-subject uses the shade according to a strategy
geared towards staying cool. The visual still has a central role in this hierarchy, but
sensory worlds are shown to be differently structured.
``The gradient undulates between 7.3% and 11.3%. I only really notice it in terms of
comfort and discomfort'' (diary, 16 July 2003). ``I approach a left hand hairpin and
check to see if any cars are coming, they're not and so I use the contours of the
road to gain a few seconds breather for my legs öit is enough'' (diary, 14 July 2003).
The idea of seeking out flat bits of road on corners is also a conjunction of the
senses, a sequencing of information ordered by experience toward achieving a goal.
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 725

Figure 5. Tunnel vision (source: author's collection).

Vision ``gets more or less from things according to the way it questions them, ranges over
or dwells on them'' (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, page 153; in Ingold, 2000, page 263). The eyes
see, and the body moves towards and feels the flattest path in order to reduce exertion
and the kinaesthetic burn in the legs. The microcontours of the roads and corners impose
a habitual pattern of movement as the rider uses flat spots to ease aching legs, even for
just a couple of seconds. Thus it is ultimately the whole body that feels for the path of
least resistance as the contours of the landscape enter our muscular consciousness.
An experience that is felt rather than seen comes to the fore. Exertion pulls the
gaze inwards, ``the landscape stretches, and compresses vision'' (Wylie, 2002b),
page 255) onto only what is directly useful to the rider: the road surface, the gradient,
the shade, the rider in front (figure 5). As Ingold argues, ``through the exercises of
descending and climbing, and their different muscular entailments, the contours of the
landscape are not so much measured as feltöthey are directly incorporated into our
bodily experience'' (2000, page 203). A relationship unfolds between the bike, body,
and landscape to create the experience of the ascent where affordances are identified
for their feel. The senses are thus shown to exist as aspects of the functioning of the
whole body in movement, in conjunction with the environment. Any one sense draws
in the others to enable more accurate apprehension (Merleau-Ponty, 1962 in Ingold,
2000, page 262). Citing Reason, Thrift argues that the kinaesthetic emerges from the
interaction of all the other senses and is the ground to our new consciousness: ``vision,
`for instance', is kinaesthetic in that it registers movements of the body, just as much as
do the vestibular receptors and those in the muscles, joints and skin'' (Reason, 1982,
page 233; in Thrift, 2000, page 42). Thus a particular spatiality of Mont Ventoux
emerges which is shown to be structured and organised by an interaction of all the
senses (Tuan, 1977, pages 11 and 15) öand in particular, the kinaesthetic.

Kinaesthesia and the meaning(s) of pain

``My earlier economy has left me with so much in my legs that I'm sure I can make it
to the top at the nearly 14kph I'm averaging. I can feel that I am having a `good
day' and can keep the worst of the pain at bay.''
(diary, 16 July 2003)
726 J Spinney

Pain and exhaustion are frequently written all over the faces of the professionals when
they ascend the mountains. The faces of the enthusiasts around me on the ascent are
little different. Riders temporarily suspend the impulses which would make them stop
an activity when it renders them short of breath or puts them in pain, distinguishing
between the pain of `the burn' and the real pain of injury (Crossley, 2004, page 53).
In popular cycling myth the ability to withstand large levels of pain is the making of
the hero, legend, and le grimpeur.(7) Similarly, of all the sensations of ascending Mont
Ventoux, pain and suffering are the most commonly talked about amongst riders.
``These body practices again allow the present to be intensified since they produce
both an intensified sense of body movement and, at the same time, focus and enhance
that movement'' (Thrift, 2000, page 45). Many amateur sportsmen and sportswomen
increasingly undertake ordeals where they are not competing against others or the
clock, but are committed to ``improving their own resistance and ability to continue,
despite the strength-sapping effect of pain'' (Le Breton, 2000, page 1).
From textual representations, two different possible meanings to the pain experi-
enced in the ascent appear to emerge. The first is that pain constructs the hero as part
of masculine endeavour. Edensor suggests in the case of long-distance walking that
``the construction of pleasure here relies upon the idea that walking of this type forms
character through masculine fulfillment'' (2000, page 93). This echoes the meanings of
the mountains proposed and circulated by events such as the Tour de France which
play upon narratives of man against nature and of the Olympian and masculine hero.
Seb, for example, situated his painful Gran Fondo experiences as a way of knowing
the self: ``it was hard but what an experience! The first climb was I think 16 km, the
next was 9 km, then the third was 29 km! And the last was 10 km! ... It really makes
you realise though what a shit you are! And it really did make me realise what a shit
I am!'' (transcription, 26 June 2003). According to Le Breton (2000), going on to the
end of the self-imposed goal gives legitimacy to life by providing a symbolic plank
upon which to judge oneself. The more intense the suffering the greater the satisfaction
in not giving up (page 1). Perhaps, then, as Michael suggests, drawing upon a stock of
`heroic' narratives around pain serves to lessen our own pain (2000, page 117).
The second thesis concerning pain and the kinaesthetic experience of ascent is that
they are reinterpreted as pleasurable. Brian highlighted both the pain and pleasure of
his Gran Fondo Pyrenean experience: ``It absolutely slaughtered me! It was bloody hard,
but fantastic though'' (transcription, 26 June 2003). Krabbe in his book The Rider also
traces a similar meaning to pain, in which it initially has no outward meaning and is
then transformed into pleasure: ``after the finish all the suffering turns to memories of
pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure'' (2002, page 113). Both
Brian's rationalisation of his experience and Krabbe's discursive thematisation of the
experience of racing support the stance of Monaghan, who in his study of embodied
sporting practice concludes that, for bodybuilders, self-controlled pain is reinterpreted
as enjoyable, often retrospectively (2001, page 346).
However, I remain unconvinced with the thesis that pain is simply reinterpreted as
pleasure or situated as masculine endeavour according to wider textual representations
and narratives. Such interpretations would seem to support Howes in suggesting that
representation is based upon metaphorical mapping between sensory experience and
ideal mental and cultural representations (Howes, 1991, pages 168 ^ 169; in Ingold,
2000, page 284). I contend that the removal of the sensory experience of pain from
its context in ascent allows it to be disconnected from practice and attached to other
extrasomatic moral and cultural ideals, consequently evacuating it of its contextual

(7) French cycling term for the select few who appear to sail up the mountains.
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 727

meaning and origins. If riders still represent their pain as pleasure, it is perhaps
because, as Ingold contends, ``for any one individual, the range of symbolic meanings
which can be drawn upon is more or less given by what is current in the community
into which he or she is born'' (2000, page 160). In the representation of riders' own
culture to others, perhaps the absence of suitable referents does not allow an adequate
comparison between their own sensory practices and experiences and those of others.
Or perhaps in a society which fears and avoids pain so much (Cook, 2000, page 4) the
meaninglessness of such suffering can be understood only by its (mis)interpretation as
pleasure.
So what else might pain mean and why? I believe that Krabbe offers a clue when
he goes on to suggest that ``pain is a march by protesters who've forgotten to paint
their signs'' (2002, page 104). I particularly like Krabbe's analogy because it points to
the notion that pain has no meaning as such, at least not outside of embodied doing.
I contend that pain does not equate to pleasure; it is the successful control and ration-
ing of pain in achieving a goal which may be viewed as pleasure, not the pain itself.
Thus when Brian exclaimed that ``It absolutely slaughtered me! It was bloody hard, but
fantastic though'' (transcription, 26 June 2003), he suggested that he took pleasure
in the successful control and conjunction of a set of practices and sensations in
achieving his goal. Le Breton qualifies this, quoting athletes saying much the same:
``it was terrible, I'd do it again'' (2000, page 6). The ordeal is looked back upon as an
achievement, as suffering controlled and overcome.
``I feel the fatigue building in my legs and in my mind; in my whole body. Not the
burning lactic sensation of an all out sprint but a new feeling; a heaviness slowly
building near my hips and around the tops of my quads and knees'' (diary, 14 July
2003).
When resituated in embodied practice pain becomes simply the byproduct of
ascent: a barometer of how the ascent is progressing, whether the goal can be achieved,
and the feeling that must be endured in order to achieve the goal. It is the feeling of
intense kinaesthetic activity in the body and what each rider sees and feels in propor-
tion to their level of skill in dealing with the activity of cycling in an environment such
as the high mountains. As Crossley suggests, agents pace themselves, parceling out
their energy at particular times in order to stay the course (2004, page 48). Pain and
fatigue make us aware of our bodies and thus the rider becomes inwardly focused as
the pain increasingly takes over his or her immediate field of experience. In this case,
pain is part of an array of controlled sensations and practices forming a strategy geared
towards achieving the goal of ascent. Pain is the currency and language of ascent, not
simply because riders read about it in magazines or see the professionals in pain but
because it is exertion that dictates the experience of riding a bike, and particularly
of riding hard. Perhaps pain, similarly to all sensory `input', is, as amateur tri-athlete
Pascal Pich points out, ``simply a piece of information'' (Pich quoted in Le Breton, 2000,
page 5). The comments and behaviours of numerous riders attest to this, pointing to the
processual and internalised nature of place on Mont Ventoux.
``At the summit, a different world engulfs me: it is so busy at the summit, utterly
different to my 8am arrival on Monday when I was the only person here'' (diary,
14 July 2003 and 16 July 2003). ``I look around: there are stalls setting up selling
cakes and pastries, and about 60 riders are milling around everywhere engaged in
different activities. Many of them are standing around going over their experiences,
comparing heart rates, average speeds and levels of suffering. `I can't believe I just
came up the Ventoux and didn't suffer too badly!' I hear one of the TREK riders
exclaim'' (diary, 16 July 2003). ``Another rider comments that he rode the climb on
heart rate and was surprised to `... see at one point that it was actually falling' ''
728 J Spinney

(diary, 18 July 2003). ``Many of the riders from the TREK bikes organised tour have
recording equipment with them. One guy even has a web-cam attached to his
helmet leading to a video camera in his jersey'' (diary, 16 July 2003; figure 6).
Such practices point to the very personal and embodied nature of the whole
experience. Despite the fact that kinaesthetic and emotional `feelings' cannot be cap-
tured, sight and sound are used to approximate a personal rather than a disembodied
narrative. The ways in which riders try to capture the experience of ascent rather than
the experience of the summit further underline the notion that meaning is created in
and through the movement of the ascent. As Wylie suggests, ``the figure gazing forth
from the summit is no longer a subject a priori projecting an intelligible structure of
meaning upon the landscape. Instead it is a subject assembled and performed in the
practice of ascension'' (2002b, page 446). What comes to represent the rider's objective
is not the summit itself but the prerepresentational ``process of getting there, and
getting back, and being able to judge and examine skills and abilities in transit''
(Lorimer and Lund, 2003, page 140).

Figure 6. ``Approaching the summit'', from the Grenoble Cycling Pages (Standring, 2004) (reprinted
by permission of Russell Standring).

Conclusions
Cosgrove suggests that ``the task of decoding the many-layered meanings of symbolic
landscapes will require a geography that is not just human, but properly humanistic''
(Cosgrove, 1989, pages 120 ^ 127; in Ingold, 2000, page 208). By focusing on embodied
movements and practices within the landscape, I seek in this paper to form a part of
this ongoing humanistic project (Gibson, 1968; Ingold, 2000; Rodaway, 1994; Seamon,
1979; Tuan, 1977) to reanimate the landscape as the product of human ^ environment
relations.
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 729

I began my narrative of ascent by discussing the cultural conjoining of the subject

and object in a modern technoculture. An organism's environment offers a range of
possible actions which reflect the skills, capacities, and limits of the animal's body, and,
significantly, prostheticisations of the body. I have highlighted the ways in which both
bike and rider become inseparable from each other within their contexts of use. Just as
the bike is refined in the ascent, so too is the subject: the hybrid subject ^ object
developing over the course of numerous ascents. The spatiality of the ascent is shown
to be constructed by the practices and interactions of riders and ``by the practical
knowledge and understanding embodied in those activities'' (Crossley, 2004, page 52).
For the cyclist, Mont Ventoux as a place is thus constructed in part by rhythms which
serve to internalise the mountain, stretching the landscape out in tune with the repet-
itive and noncognitive motions of pedaling. Congruently, we do not simply see from
the bike: as a technology which moves the body and moves through space, we feel
from it.
Following on from this insight, I have talked through some of the ways in which the
senses are prioritised to identify affordances in the landscape according to the goals
and capabilities of the rider. As Ingold and Kurttila point out ``the multi-sensory
awareness of the environment ... is the key to spatial orientation and the coordination
of activity'' (2000, page 189). Ingold goes on to argue that, for senses such as hearing,
touch, and kinaesthesia, there is only becoming because we can know the world
through them only by constant movement and perceptual activity (2000, page 244).
This notion of becoming within the landscape raises the possibility of an engagement
where meaning is not fixed prior to the encounter. By using a discussion on kinaes-
thetic pain as a central example of a sensation generated during ascent, I have
attempted to flesh out Ingold's point, arguing that meaning is created prerepresenta-
tionally moment by moment through a direct engagement with the landscape. That is
not to say that the practices which produce (for example) pain are not culturally
mediated, or that pain cannot be extrasomatically reinterpreted later; it is rather to
suggest that, when participated in directly, pain and the landscape take on different
meanings. Thus, as Rose suggests, the only thing that ``the landscape ever is, is the
practices that make it relevant'' (2002, page 463).
A picture emerges of a landscape called forth by numerous different rhythms and
sensations. It is at once a place that must be approached with respect, one of pan-
oramic views and exertion-tunneled vision, of solitude and sociability, of the felt and
the visual, of destination and journey, of scene and seen from. Such understandings
have important implications for the ways in which we research and interpret space,
place, and landscape. Indeed, as Krabbe implies when he says that, ``even if the earth
were as flat as a billiard ball, there would still be alpinists: the true alpinists'' (2002,
page 89) the landscape is embraced not simply because of what it offers outwardly and
contemplatively but because of what it offers inwardly from an embodied and active
participation within it.
Acknowledgements. I would like to thank all those who took part in this research including the
South Western Road Club, Brian Griffiths, and all those I met on Mont Ventoux. I would like to
thank Catherine Nash for her help and support in the writing of the MA dissertation upon
which this paper is based. In addition, I would like to thank Phil Crang for his encouragement
and valuable comments on various drafts of this paper, and Rob Imrie for valuable input into
related work. I would also like to thank the anonymous referees whose insightful comments
helped to improve the content and clarity of this paper enormously. Any errors or unconvincing
interpretations remain my own.
730 J Spinney

References
Balsamo A, 1996 Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (Duke University
Press, Durham, NC)
Buttimer A, 1976, ``Grasping the dynamism of lifeworld'' Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 66 277 ^ 292
Buttimer A, Seaman D (Eds), 1980 The Human Experience of Space and Place (Croom Helm,
London)
Cook A, 2000, ``Exploding the five senses: a sideways look at human sensing abilities'',
http://www.hummingbird-one.co.uk/humanbeing/five.html
Cosgrove D, 1989, ``Geography is everywhere: culture and symbolism in human landscapes'', in
Horizons in Human Geography Eds D Gregory, R Walford (Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
pp 118 ^ 135
Cosgrove D, 1998 Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape (University of Wisconsin Press,
Madison, WI)
Cosgrove D, Daniels S (Eds), 1988 The Iconography of Landscape (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge)
Cresswell T, 1997, ``Imagining the nomad: mobility and the postmodern primitive'', in Space and
Social Theory: Interpreting Modernity and Postmodernity Eds G Benko, U Strohmayer
(Blackwell, Oxford) pp 360 ^ 382
Cresswell T, 1999, ``Embodiment, power and the politics of mobility: the case of female tramps
and hobos'' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 24 175 ^ 192
Cresswell T, 2003, ``Landscape and the obliteration of practice'', in The Handbook of Cultural
Geography Eds K Anderson, M Domosh, S Pile, N Thrift (Sage, London) pp 269 ^ 282
Crossley N, 2004, ``The circuit trainer's habitus: reflexive body techniques and the sociality of
the workout'' Body and Society 10(1) 37 ^ 69
Cycling Weekly Tour Tribute, 2003, ``We have the technology'', July page 133 (IPC Media, London)
Daniels S, 1993 Fields of Vision: Landscape Imagery and National Identity in England and the United
States (Polity Press, Cambridge)
Douglas M, 1966 Purity and Danger (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London)
Duncan J, 1990 The City as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan Kingdom
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
Edensor T, 2000, ``Walking in the British countryside: reflexivity, embodied practices and ways
to escape'' Body and Society 6(3/4) 81 ^ 106
Edwards C, Imrie R, 2003, ``Disability and bodies as bearers of value'' Sociology 37 239 ^ 256
Fotheringham W, 2002 Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson (Yellow Jersey Press,
London)
Game A, 2001, ``Riding: embodying the centaur'' Body and Society 7(4) 1 ^ 12
Gibson J, 1968 The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (George Allen and Unwin, London)
Gibson J, 1974 The Perception of the Visual World (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT)
Haraway D, 1985, ``A manifesto for cyborgs: science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the
1980s'' Socialist Review 80 65 ^ 107
Howes D, 1991, ``Sensorial anthropology'', in The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in
the Anthropology of the Senses Ed. D Howes (University of Toronto Press, Toronto) pp 167 ^ 191
Howitt R, 2002, ``Scale and the other: Levinas and geography'' Geoforum 33 299 ^ 313
Ingold T, 2000 The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Enskillment
(Routledge, London)
Ingold T, Kurttila T, 2000, ``Perceiving the environment in Finnish Lapland'' Body and Society
6(3/4) 183 ^ 196
Irigaray L, 1978, ``Interview with Luce Irigaray'', in Les Femmes, La Pornographie et L'Erotisme
Eds M Hans, G Lapouge (Eèditions du Seuil, Paris)
Jackson J B, 1997,``The abstract world of the hot-rodder'', in Landscape in Sight: Looking at America
(Yale University Press, New Haven, CT)
Krabbe T, 2002 The Rider (Bloomsbury, London)
Law R, 1999, ``Beyond `women and transport': towards new geographies of gender and daily
mobility'' Progress in Human Geography 23 567 ^ 588
Le Breton D, 2000, ``Playing symbolically with death in extreme sports'' Body and Society 6(1) 1 ^ 11
Lefebvre H, 2004 Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life translated by S Elden, G Moore
(Continuum, London)
Lewis N, 2000, ``The climbing body, nature and the experience of modernity'' Body and Society
6(3/4) 58 ^ 80
A kinaesthetic ethnography of cyclists on Mont Ventoux 731

Lorimer H, Lund K, 2003, ``Performing facts: finding a way over Scotland's mountains''
Sociological Review 51 130 ^ 144
McCormack D, 2002, ``A paper with an interest in rhythm'' Geoforum 33 469 ^ 485
McGinn R E, 1978, ``What is technology?'' Research in Philosophy and Technology 1 179 ^ 197
Marks D, 1999 Disability: Controversial Debates and Psychosocial Perspectives (Routledge,
London)
Marshall H, 1996, ``Our bodies ourselves: why we should add old fashioned empirical
phenomenology to the new theories of the body'' Women's Studies International Forum 19
253 ^ 265
Massey D, 2002,``Living in Wythenshawe'', in The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social
Space Eds I Borden, J Kerr, J Rendell, A Pivaro (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 458 ^ 475
Matless D, 1990, ``Definitions of England, 1928 ^ 89: preservation, modernism and the nature of
the nation'' Built Environment 16 179 ^ 191
Matless D, 1995, `` `The art of right living': landscape and citizenship, 1918 ^ 39'', in Mapping the
Subject: Geographies of Cultural Transformation Eds S Pile, N Thrift (Routledge, London)
pp 93 ^ 122
Merleau-Ponty M, 1962 Phenomenology of Perception translated by C Smith (Routledge and
Kegan Paul, London)
Michael M, 2000, ``These boots are made for walking ... : mundane technology, the body and
human ^ environment relations'' Body and Society 6(3/4) 107 ^ 126
Monaghan L, 2001, ``Looking good, feeling good: the embodied pleasures of vibrant physicality''
Sociology of Health and Illness 23 330 ^ 356
Nash C, 1996, ``Reclaiming vision; looking at landscape and the body'' Gender, Place and Culture
3 149 ^ 69
Nash C, 2000, ``Performativity in practice: some recent work in cultural geography'' Progress in
Human Geography 24 653 ^ 664
Nelson L, 1999, ``Bodies (and spaces) do matter: the limits of performativity'' Gender, Place and
Culture 6 331 ^ 353
Norberg-Schulz C, 1976, ``The phenomenon of place'', in Theorising a New Agenda for Architecture:
An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965 ^ 1995 Ed. K Nesbitt (Princeton Architectural Press,
New York) pp 412 ^ 419
Palmer C 1996 A Life of Its Own: The Social Construction of the Tour de France unpublished PhD
thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide
Perry D, 1995 Bike Cult:The Ultimate Guide to Human-powered Vehicles (Four Walls Eight Windows,
New York)
Pile S, 1996 The Body and the City: Psychoanalysis, Space and Subjectivity (Routledge, London)
Pinch T J, Bijker W E, 1984, ``The social construction of facts and artefacts: or how the sociology
of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other'' Social Studies of Science
14 399 ^ 441
Reason J T, 1982, ``Sensory processes'', in Introducing Psychology Ed. A Taylor (Penguin Books,
Harmondsworth, Middx) pp 218 ^ 252
Relph E, 1970, ``An enquiry into the relations between phenomenology and geography'' Canadian
Geographer 14 193 ^ 201
Rodaway P, 1994 Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place (Routledge, London)
Rose M, 2002, ``Landscape and labyrinths'' Geoforum 33 455 ^ 467
Rosen P, 2002 Framing Production: Technology, Culture, and Change in the British Bicycle Industry
(MIT Press, Cambridge, MA)
Schama S, 1995 Landscape and Memory (Alfred A Knopf, New York)
Schmidt J, 1985 Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Between Phenomenology and Structuralism (Macmillan,
London)
Seamon D, 1979 A Geography of the Lifeworld (St Martin's Press, New York)
Seamon D, 1980, ``Body-subject, time ^ space routines, and place-ballets'', in The Human Experience
of Space and Place Eds A Buttimer, D Seamon (Croom Helm, London) pp 148 ^ 167
Seamon D, Mugerauer R (Eds), 1985 Dwelling, Place, and Environment (Martinus Nijhoff,
Dordrecht)
Seamon D, Zajonc A (Eds), 1998 Goethe's Way of Science: A Phenomenology of Nature (State
University of New York Press, Albany, NY)
Sparkes C, 2002, ``Fictional representations: on difference, choice, and risk'' Sociology of Sport
Journal 19 1 ^ 24
Standring R, 2004 Grenoble Cycling Pages http://www.grenoblecycling.free.fr/montventoux.htm
732 J Spinney

Thrift N, 1997, ``The still point: resistance, expressive embodiment and dance'', in Geographies of
Resistance (Routledge, London) pp 124 ^ 151
Thrift N, 2000,``Still life in nearly present time: the object of nature'' Body and Society 6(3/4) 34 ^ 57
Tuan Y, 1977 Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Edward Arnold, London)
Urry J, 2000 Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-first Century (Routledge, New
York)
Walter E, 1988 Placeways: A Theory of the Human Environment (University of North Carolina Press,
Chapel Hill, NC)
Woods C, 2001 Bikie: A Love Affair with the Racing Bicycle (Mainstream, Edinburgh)
Wylie J, 2002a, ``An essay on ascending Glastonbury Tor'' Geoforum 33 441 ^ 454
Wylie J, 2002b, ``Becoming-icy: Scott and Amundsen's South Polar voyages, 1910 ^ 1913'' Cultural
Geographies 9 249 ^ 265

ß 2006 a Pion publication printed in Great Britain

Conditions of use. This article may be downloaded from the E&P website for personal research
by members of subscribing organisations. This PDF may not be placed on any website (or other
online distribution system) without permission of the publisher.