The Best Adventure Movies: Breaking Away

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Outside Magazine, June 2005

Outside Goes to the Movies
A Perfect 10
Breaking Away

By Steven Kotler & The Editors

2. Breaking Away (1979)
Cycling as the route to transcendence? Convinced us! Plus it's funny as hell.

Four blue-collar guys from Bloomington, Indiana, struggling to sort out life after high school, rise above their dim career prospects by forming a bike team to take on the fraternity louts at the local campus. The group's spinner in chief is Dave Stohler (Dennis Christopher), who blocks out his dreary surroundings by going Italian—that is, shaving his legs to ride faster, serenading a girl with opera, and feeding his cat out of a Cinzano ashtray. The dream crashes hard when real Italian riders cheat past him in a race. Shaken but determined, Stohler is convinced by his pals—including Mike (Dennis Quaid) and the wisecracking Cyril (Daniel Stern)—to compete in Indiana University's Little 500 race.

Director Peter Yates shot the movie entirely in Bloomington, and Steve Tesich's Oscar-winning screenplay has a heartland sensibility but avoids the corny pep talks that drag down most "uplifting" sports films. Released seven years before Greg LeMond became the first American to win the Tour de France, this was our first chance to cheer for a guy on a bike—and dream about racing our own.

Next Page: Touching the Void

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