Apr 10, 2007
Breaking Away is Underrated
There is a cool list of “Underrated Sports Movies” that includes every cyclist favorite movie Breaking Away. If you don’t know, the story revolves around a boy from Indiana who gets into bike racing in the mid-70s. He idolizes cycling in Europe particularly idolizing Italians and Italian culture. He speaks Italian, shaves his legs, asks his mom to cook Zucchini and plays Opera music. The Dad gets pissed about this I-talian stuff and wants his son to get a real job.
Check out a scene when the boy gets to ride with his idols which include Christian Van Velde’s dad in the Cinzano 500 (note: Black is now in style again for cycling kits, the Cinzano kit is pretty sweet.)
My favorite scene in Breaking Away is when the boy does some motorpacing with a semi truck on the highway. Check out the part when we see the kid spinning away in the small ring all while going around 50 mph!
This is also notable as Dave finds out that his favorite team Cinzano is coming to race locally.
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That scene with the semi has always bugged me. Even if he uses the biggest gear available in 1979 (54/12), according to the gear calculator at http://sheldonbrown.com/gears, he’d only be doing 42.2 mph at 120rpm.
To reach 50 mph, he’d need roughly 143 rpm, and for 60 mph, an astounding 171 rpm. Between 2:57 and 2:47 in the above clip, he takes 16 pedal strokes (96 rpm), which, would propel him at a comparatively pedestrian 34.
I’d never noticed that bit with the small ring before, but it’s obviously a mistake. And the more I look at his rear derailleur, the more it looks it isn’t taking up enough slack to be in the smallest cog.