Thirty years ago, my biking enthusiast friend Scott dragged me and two others into a Madison, Wisconsin, theater to see a movie called “Breaking Away.” Going in, I wasn’t thrilled to see a movie on bike racing. Back in the 1970s I thought Cinzano was one step up from Anne Green Springs wine. At the time I preferred motorized transportation and was 15 years away from my first purchase of a bike. And then it was a mountain bike, not a road bike.

As it turned out, the movie was a lot better than I had expected. The movie struck a chord with me and my buddies. And a lot of other people liked the movie, too. In 1979 it earned several Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture, and won the Oscar for best screenplay. The American Film Institute currently ranks it in its top 10 sports and inspirational movie categories.

Like the four of us, this coming-of-age flick chronicled four guys from blue-collar families trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. At the time, my dad owned a garage and I spent my summer helping him by balancing tires. (Now I am an accountant balancing books.) The four friends were townies in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. The college kids derisively refer to the local residents as “cutters,” a reference to the local limestone quarry workers that provided the raw materials for the campus architecture.

The main character, Dave Stohler, is a cycling fanatic who seems to care about little other than racing his bike and worshiping the Italian Cinzano racing team. This generates much consternation for his father, a used car salesman. Throughout the movie tensions run high as the townies and privileged collegians infringe on each other’s turf.

The showdown is at Indiana University’s annual Little 500 bicycle relay race. The race was contested on a cinder track with three- to four-person teams sharing one bike. Over the protest of the students, one local team is invited to compete against the college boys. Proudly adopting “Cutters” as their team name, Dave and his three noncycling friends enter the race. Dave does a bulk of the riding for his team. But in true Hollywood style, the race comes down to a photo finish. Even Dave’s dad gets caught up in the excitement, yelling “Go, Dave, go!” as the team anchors sprint for the checkered flag. As you might expect, the Cutters pull out the come-from-behind victory and the defeated frat boys begrudgingly give the Cutters the respect they are due.

Seeing the real thing

Thirty years later, my wife, Debbie, and I went to the see the real thing. Not the Hollywood version of the Little 500, but the real Little 500. I did not go to Indiana University, but my oldest daughter Amy (and my money) does.

I was curious to see how the real McCoy compared to the Tinseltown version. Billed as the “greatest college weekend,” the Indiana Alumni Association hosts the Little 500 on the last weekend in April. It’s like being in the eye of a hurricane. The students have one last chance to blow off a little steam before they take their final exams a week later.

Amy is a sophomore and was less than enthusiastic when her mother and I invited ourselves to visit her during the “Little Five.” Her ambivalent “Well, OK” was not a surprise to me as I think back on my attitude at the same age. I felt pretty much the same about visits from my parental units. Hanging with my friends and demonstrating my independence was important. Having a couple of 50-somethings attached to your hip definitely cramps your style.

While Amy genuinely appeared to be happy to see us arrive, she made it clear that she would be attending the races with her friends. She pointed out that there would be plenty of great seats on the other side of Bill Armstrong Stadium, where the race is currently hosted.

“Breaking Away” was filmed at Old Memorial Stadium, which was torn down shortly after the movie was made. But other areas of the campus looked amazingly the same. (When I watched the DVD with Amy, she was more amazed at Dennis Quaid’s rock-hard abs.)

My wife and I grabbed seats in the bleachers along the backstretch nestled between two raucous sororities. The cheering and energy was at a fever pitch with a combination of cheering for their sisters and taunting the rival house seated in the next section. How much of the intensity was enhanced by alcohol I couldn’t tell.

There are actually two Little 500 races, one for men and one for women. The women’s race, inaugurated in 1988, drew more hoopla than normal last year when then presidential candidate Barack Obama made a campaign stop at it and shook the hands of all of the competing riders.

Thirty-one teams circle the quarter-mile cinder track for two ceremonial laps behind a Corvette pace car, à la the Indy 500. As the pace car pulled away and the green flag was thrown down, the riders flung themselves down the track for 100 laps.

Teams are issued two single-speed Schwinn bikes equipped with coaster brakes and platform pedals. Each team has its own designated pit where they can either exchange bikes or riders. The backup bike works well for riders of different heights or when mechanical breakdowns occur. The movie version of the race had each team sharing one bike. The audience gets a laugh when the vertically challenged Moocher had to ride a bike on which he could barely reach the pedals.

Unfortunately for our adopted sorority, their team’s anchor rider endoed and grabbed a face full of cinders on lap two. She was taken to the hospital but later discharged with the only injury being scrapes on her face.

That turn of events really harshed the buzz in our section of the bleachers. Missing one-quarter of their team, one rider had to shoulder the bulk of the riding for the rest of the race. Her sisters cheered her on yelling “Go, Libby, Go!”

The scoreboard and track public address announcer tried to keep the crowd informed of the race leaders. I must admit, in a race dominated by sorority houses, the team names were, ahem, Greek to me. I couldn’t keep Kappa Kappa Gamma straight from Zeta Sigma Bubba after a while. In the end, Pi Beta Phi edged out Delta Sigma Pi by one second.

As I watched the girls circle the track, I was reminded of the time I was trying to teach Amy to ride a bike. She would pedal a circular path in our neighborhood with my hand on her back to keep her upright. As she got steadier, I would let go and run behind her, yelling “Go, Amy, Go!”

The capstone of the weekend is the men’s race on Saturday afternoon. The 2009 Little 500 marked its 59th running. Debbie and I found seats in the grandstand next to the Phi Gamma Deltas “Fijis” frat. They were stoked about their chances after securing the second starting position in the qualifying time trials held three weeks earlier. For many years the Greeks monopolized the winners’ circle for the men. But there are now a number of powerful independent teams.

One of those teams adopted the Cutters name.

Today’s Cutters

The real-world version of the Cutters bears little semblance to the ragtag group of townies in the movie. The Cutters are the New York Yankees of the Little 500 having won nine of the 24 races they have entered since 1983. This year, the defending champion Cutters were trying to become only the third team to win three consecutive races and win a record 10 total. Rather than lovable underdogs, the Cutters are the team you either love or hate. “Stop the Cutters” T-shirts were a popular item on campus.

Contrary to popular belief, the Cutters are not townies. To participate in the race, you must be an Indiana University undergraduate. And none of the current crop of Cutters is a Bloomington native. Previous Cutters were ousted from a fraternity, leaving them with more in common with the characters in “Animal House” than “Breaking Away.”

This year the Cutters started in the third position wearing yellow jerseys. Phi Delta Theta was in the pole position.

While “Breaking Away” was not really a true story, there were some parallels to reality. The screenplay was written by Indiana University student Steve Tesich who competed in the Little 500 in the early 1960s. The main character, Dave Stohler, was inspired by Tesich’s teammate Dave Blasè, who rode 139 of the 200 laps to carry his team to victory in 1962. Apparently Blasè was a tad eccentric and loved Italian opera music, just like the movie version of him.

One thing that this year’s race and the movie had in common was the final result. Heading into the final lap, the Cutters’ sprinter was in the lead pack of some 10 riders. The Cutter rider made his move on the backstretch pulling out to a small lead. A number of the fans around me started yelling “Go, Cutters, go!” as the pack rounded turn four. The Cutter rider was able to maintain his slim margin to the checkered flag. The adjacent Fijis let out a collective groan as their team settled for third place. The top 10 teams all finished within eight seconds of each other.

My wife I and I had a great weekend. We witnessed two exciting finishes, soaked up some sun, and saw our daughter after an absence of nearly four months. As we headed back to Chicago, my wife handled the normally emotional departure better than she usually does knowing that Amy would be coming back home in a few weeks. I couldn’t help but think that in a couple of years, Amy might not be coming back. Our home probably won’t be her home. It is a bittersweet feeling to see your children grow up and need you less. But in the end, as we pulled away from her apartment, I thought to myself with pride, “Go, Amy, go.”

Mark Ollinger is chief financial officer for a financial company in Chicago’s western suburbs. He lives in Barrington, Illinois.

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