livedarklions

Breaking Away, he was racing the Italian team and they put him into the ditch because they couldn't drop him even after shifting his gear on a hill. The whole point was how cut-throat the cheating could be, and he gets disillusioned. He wasn't being punished for "making fun". Quite the opposite, he was trying to converse with them in Italian.

vane171

I found it when checking on my fav forum sections, incl. Road Cycling
The way it looks to me, guy comes across as poking fun at the Italian group of riders. Like a noob at racing who is foolishly showing off his strength when the going is still easy and then not having the gumption to stay on later in the race.
The pranks slowing him down strike me as deserved but that depends how you read the whole scene. You are probably right, but really one should see the whole movie.

I recall seeing a movie from ~1970s era that follows the cycling career of a guy who can't quite cut it in the peloton and hears about doping, gets some and in the race he flies like an eagle to a win, sort of like this guy here at the start of the clip when he can virtually ride circles around the Italians.

Then later in his career when he is becoming a bit too old to keep up in the races, there is some important race and he decides to take double or even triple dose of the doping and when signing up for the race, he is virtually dancing, his signature is several times larger than anybody's else , does very well in the first part of the race but then the doping impacts his performance negatively and he falls off the bike at one point up a hill and doesn't even finish the race.

The movie either shows the realities of racing in those days or maybe it blows it up beyond realistic to make the point, not easy to judge. It just might be the reality of those days.

Bald Paul

Bingo. Really is worth renting it online. Then you would understand what was actually going on.
And stuffing a pump into a rider's front wheel, causing him to crash, is a prank? What would you consider aggressive, shooting him and eating his flesh?

livedarklions

The way it looks to you is just wrong. He idolized the Italian team and is trying to have a friendly chat in Italian. They cheat to avoid being embarrassed that they can't drop this guy. Seriously, quit digging.
And no, it's not about doping, either.

ksryder

Wow imagine completely and utterly missing the point of Breaking Away.

Phil_gretz

It's sad that many (most?) kids today never learn the art of literary analysis, were never required to think critically, and will go through life thinking that Instragram and Tik Tok provide all that they need to understand the depth and breadth of the human condition. Sad.

The only consolation is that my ignore list is growing in an inversely proportional way...

Rdmonster69

When I was learning to play I eventually bought a Gibson SG and later a Fender '62 Hot Rod Strat. Both expensive, beautiful pro level instruments. I even learned to play along with some pretty fun songs, learn new stuff....had great fun for a good while. A lack of real talent or friends to play with led me to slow way down and I eventually sold those instruments to pay for some expensive repairs to a E39 M5 I owned for a bit.

I also ride like a Tour De France rider .......in slow motion ...... on a cheap bike that the OP still thinks is too expensive.

growlerdinky

Breaking Away is about growing up. It's about being the outcast in your circle of outcasts. It's about the father/son relationship, and realizing that life will be tough. it is about determination and heartbreak and overcoming. It happens to utilize cycling. I watch it every couple of years. It doesn't necessarily age well, and yes, he is drafting a semi in the small ring, but that isnt the point.

Eric F 

IMO, it has aged just fine. It's no longer a modern story, but rather a story told about characters from some decades ago. However, the themes you highlight are still current.

I'm still working on doing 60 in the little ring...and that Masi is still gorgeous.

big chainring 

One of the disturbing bits in Breaking Away is Daves father Mr Stoller. A stone cutter who still strolls campus admiring his work. But the work is gone now and Dave and his friends swim in the quarries where his dad labored. A lot of symbolism there. A skilled stone cutter, now a broken man...selling used cars. His world doesnt exist anymore. He's cranky and irritable. A foreshadowing of the great midwestern rust belt and the demise of the the middle class working man. And that was 1979?

40 years later now. Dave Stoller never finished college. His dads heart went out again...this time fatal. He kept the house up and supported his mom by working two jobs, Walmart and Home Depot. Back problems started at about 40 yrs old. Now he's unemployed, hooked on opiods and is first in line every month at the marijauna dispensery. House has a reverse mortgage. In 6 months he'll be homeless. The Masi has mountain bike bars, a mattress saddle, and two rotted out Clement criterium setas.. He just listed a broken down rusted out Corvette on Bloomington CL to raise the money for a new e-bike.

vane171

Is that aimed at me? If you are anything like in your picture here, then it is you who would belong in 'kids' category. Mind you, I never ever touched those apps, nor &^*book or anything like that. Literary analysis on the basis of a minute clip, my foot.

All I can say, either the actor or the movie director or both fail to come across in this clip if the scene was meant the other way (which I concede and believe that). But one point they made and that is showing us realities of life as it once had been (re-the pump in the wheel). Else why would that be traditional joking that everybody around cycling know what that is about, although nobody would do it in their right mind. But obviously, there were time when even that would have been done. These days, guys just fist fight on bikes, like in a recent TDF race.

Really movie like this should be banned by today's standards, wouldn't and couldn't be made today, I mean with attitudes like that.

vane171

From your description, the movie really seems to turn about totally different things than bicycling and I can see I stepped on some toes going only by that clip. Mind you, I visited friends in Pen state around 1983 and by then, it was a rustbelt for many years. Never before have I seen so many abandoned steelworks that have long gone to dogs. But buying house in Pittsburgh was cheap, just very few or decent jobs around to live there, must have been full of tragic stories. In 79, all that would have been well underway.

big chainring 

Eddy("actor" who played Italian with pump)was a tough cookie. I saw him throwing punches in a race back in the day. Also an incident where he and several others "went over the fence" on the back straight at Kenosha Velodrome.

Eric F 

Without the larger context, you're really missing the point. He isn't poking fun at the Italian riders, he idolizes them, and wants to be accepted as a fellow competitor. They try to swat him away by changing his gears, but his determination remains relentless. His hero worship of the Italians is shattered when they wreck him with the pump to the spokes. The Italians are not the good guys in this scene.

Eric F 

It's a really good coming-of age movie about young men at the beginning of their adult lives learning how the world works. Cycling is just one of the vehicles used for telling the story. It also won an Oscar for Best Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078902/awards Watch the whole thing. You might actually enjoy it.

gringomojado

It means "Envy"


gm

Aroyobob

Interview with Eddy Van Guyse

Doc for Jocks: Eddy Van Guyse 35 Years after "Breaking Away"

big chainring 

[QUOTE=vane171;22096861 In 79, all that would have been well underway.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I was young and unaware.

Rdmonster69

CAN YOU DIG IT !!!!

I wear tight clothes to make other cyclists feel good about the shape they are in. I don't know what my bike weighs. This thread is fun.

livedarklions

This is one of those "goof on the faux clever OP" threads. They're almost always fun.

shelbyfv

^^^OP hasn't been back in awhile. Time for him to throw up another. Maybe an insightful poll.

LarrySellerz

wow you guys really just left him hanging like that? Jeez, a lycra brigade I passed did that to me a couple months ago, although it wasn't super obvious I had a mechanical issue, but nobody asked why I was stopped... Also he was just proud of himself for being able to hang, why not introduce yourself instead of telling him to **** off. Also, if you want him to stop drafting just turn up the watts and drop him. If you can't drop him and you want him gone, stop pedaling until he gets the hint and passes you. Sounds like you got competitive and didn't want to give in like that

LarrySellerz

wow thats ****ed up but so true.....

livedarklions

I think he stopped being a benign presence when he blocked the 45 mph lane and copped an attitude when told to stop that. I wouldn't feel any courtesy obligation after that.

Also, I don't ask people if they're ok just because they're stopped unless it's at least likely they are having a mechanical.

Hiro11

I love this movie. It's a terrific movie about young men transitioning into adulthood, right when responsibility and reality start to bite. It captures that period when you start to figure out who you are. It's an economical and effective movie.

More personally, my daughter is currently an undergrad at IU Bloomington. Before she started there, we watched Breaking Away together. She enjoyed the movie and when we moved her in freshman year, we went around town spotting all the filming locations. The town hasn't changed very much in over 40 years. She's now been at IU for two years and she still spots location on Kirkwood, in the IMU (student union) and elsewhere around town that were used in the movie. She's in a sorority, but not the one used in the film (shot, I believe, at the former Tri-Delt house on Third Street). She has even swam several times in the quarry in the movie, it's truly right outside of town as shown in the movie and is still used by IU students. If you've never seen it, IU has a stunningly beautiful campus. All of the buildings are indeed covered in Indiana limestone just as discussed in the movie. Also,the Little 500 is still a huge deal on campus. The week of "little five" is still the culmination of the school's social calendar, especially in the Greek system.