Movies about racing

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So, we got these “racing” movies on deck. I’ve no idea, really. They just show up in my inbox and there you go. I’m seeing a limited release in cycling heavy places like Boulder, Colorado and Portland, Oregon. And, then straight to DVD. They should be available for Holiday purchase this fall through a number of internet sites and cycling catalogs.

The Potential Inside

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Ok, ready? Dude races, wins, retires, coaches, experiences difficulty in that all-to-difficult transition back to the real world, loses someone important to him through a senseless tragedy, finds/meets some damaged guy, damaged guy becomes his client, dude saves client and our protagonist also saves himself in the process. High five later.

Peloton

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Nice guy racer down on his luck, can’t even cut it as a messenger (ever try a bike shop?), taken in by buddy, buddy’s girl hung up on danger of racing (pillow talk moment where she asks “name one of your friends that hasn’t crashed?”), collectively the two buddies overcome some mixed adversity (namely 1. girlfriends who don’t understand racing and 2. aforementioned danger of crashing), the couples eventually find each other through (surprise!) racing, and the boys, of course, win a bike race and discover what’s really important in life (i.e., something they already had).

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About big jonny

The man, the legend. The guy who started it all back in the Year of Our Lord Beer, 2000, with a couple of pages worth of idiotic ranting hardcoded on some random porn site that would host anything you uploaded, a book called HTML for Dummies (which was completely appropriate), a bad attitude (which hasn’t much changed), and a Dell desktop running Win95 with 64 mgs of ram and a six gig hard drive. Those were the days. Then he went to law school. Go figure. Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

44 Replies to “Movies about racing”

  1. GAWD….those look horrible. Then again, have you watched Breaking Away, American Flyers or Quicksilver lately?

  2. …somebody DID recently state in this august chronicle that “cycling is the new golf”

    …take that for whatever it’s worth…

  3. In Peloton. Around the 1:15 mark. Where he rides right in to a dumpster.

    I’m cracking up here.

    I so did that once.

    Some kid. Riding a skateboard. Took me by surprise.

    Then…..Thump.

  4. Sean, American Flyers and Quicksilver are utter crap. Breaking Away, on the other hand, is a fantastic coming of age film. It is well written and has very solid performances from all four main characters as well as the actors playing Dave Stoller’s parents. To lump Breaking Away in with tripe like American Flyers and Quicksilver is a travesty of a mockery of a sham.

  5. jesus fuck. i made it 27 seconds on the 1st video and thats all i could take. all my children has better actors than that. CHEESE.

  6. are you crazy? am. flyers and quicksilver are the money. that topless scene with the hippie chick, and the edgy urban fabric of nyc messenger underworld. gold, pure gold. three words for you boys. RAE. DAWN. CHONG. take that.

  7. Jazzy–that topless hippie chick later went on to costar in Waterworld…also with Costner.

    wacky

    I used to hang out with the guy who played Eddie in American Flyers.

  8. “Flying Scotsman” Great cast, well acted, and the bike scenes are actually something bike racers can appreciate (The tunnel-vision on the track during the pursuit is spot on).

    Sidenote: Didn’t “Breaking Away” win an Oscar for the script?

  9. Even though these movies feature bikes and people riding them, I’m still catching “shades of Talladega”

  10. one of the guys that used to work at my shop is in the first clip. first i have seen of it. apparently the final funding that got the movie made had some evangelical strings attached or something so things got weird pretty quick with the storyline in that flick.anyway, anyone coming to Gran Prix of Gloucester OCT 2 and 3rd? is so shoot us an email and drop by our tent.

  11. Look for “2 seconds” it’s a french film about a female pro DH racer who gets disillusioned with racing and moves back home and ends up a bike messenger. She then strikes up a friendship with a crank old bike shop owner. There is a great scene where the two compare battle scars that captures an element of true cycling.

  12. …while “breaking away” may be a little too goofy to be a mainstream classic, it’s THE quintessential cycling classic…

    …i don’t care whatcha got, i ain’t budgin’ on that…

  13. Kilgore – Actually, that topless hippy chick went on to star in Baywatch – her name is Alexandra Paul. The Waterworld actress was Jeanne Tripplehorn

  14. Whoa Sean, you’re right. I always thought Jeanne Tripplehorn was Alexandra Pauls porn name, but I guess they’re two different people. Funny, though, the little girl from Waterworld was the nerdy chick from Napoleon Dynamite.

    Triplets is the shit, and the theme song is a major earworm…”they are so rough, so very rough, rougher than the Triplets of Belleville”.

  15. Gotta get me that movie. “Triplets”, I mean. I’ve an idea even my stridently non-cyclist daughter would succumb to its charms.

  16. gritty urban fabric is what i remember, maybe you are right since there was that scene where they were going up a monster hill. if you want to go toe to toe with me on quicksilver minutia, bring it on. wait a second, didnt bacon hit the floor on the NYSE to get hector’s hot dog cart $?

  17. yeah 2 seconds was actually pretty decent. not breaking away, but worth a watch when you are on the trainer this january.

  18. joe, your constant omission of pronouns grew tiresome long ago. you speak like bumper stickers.

    those sentences remind me of tragic muumuu beach cover-ups that say shit like, “been there, done that.” they have outspoken attitude and serve to cover up major flaws. what the shirts are really are saying is “i’m a defeated lower socioeconomic class underachiever, and i will not rise to the challenge of being respectable.” tighten your game up, brother. your underwear is shoeing.

    the movie titled triplets of belleville rules ass.

  19. Joe – You’re daughter is stridently non-cyclist? I’m sorry.
    Coming from a guy who has ridden a winter with studded tires and knows the feeling of hosing off the salt, crud, and collected ice off of a bike, I would say, let her see how happy and strong you are for riding the bike and maybe she’ll come around. It’s a superior vehicle. Superior to the scooter, moped, motorcycle, car, truck, train, and bus.
    When gasoline is $x.99+9/10 per gallon, we’ll see people figuring it out the hard way. Personal power plants are so fucking last century.

  20. improve yer english littlejarhead. “you’re” a daughter… always knew you were a little bitch. step up punk.