Trivia for
Breaking Away (1979) More at IMDbPro »

• According to Indiana University's Office of Communications and Marketing, the Little 500 bicycle race began in 1951 as a fund-raiser for scholarship money for working students. The race was created by the late Howard S. "Howdy" Wilcox (Howard S. Wilcox), who patterned it after the Indianapolis 500, which his father had won in 1919. He was inspired by a bicycle race he saw involving students racing around a dormitory, with several women leaning out of windows and cheering them on.
  
  
• Initially, the Indiana Student Foundation promised director Peter Yates 20,000 student extras for the final race scenes. Unfortunately, only 3,000 showed up, causing Yates to change his camera angles.
  
  
• Dave's bike was a 1978 Masi Gran Criterium.
  
  
• As of the Little 500 in 2005, the "Cutters" have had a team every year since this movie was made. However, the original "Cutters" team, created after the movie's release, never included locals. Race guidelines dictate that all racers must attend the University.
  
  
• The "Cutters" team won the race in 2004, the 25th anniversary of the film in a much similar fashion to the ending of the film by beating out the "ATO" team (but the team was made up of non-Greek students, two of which were Bloomington locals who were attending Indiana University).
  
  
• Steve Tesich based the Dave Stoller character on David K. Blase, who had once led a team to victory in the Little 500 and had an Italian fixation. Blase had a cameo as the race announcer in this movie.
  
  
• Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time (2006).
  
  
• Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Sports" in June 2008
  
  
• In the scene where Dave admits to Catherine that he is not Italian but is actually a "Cutter" (one of the local residents), Catherine starts to walk off, then turns back and slaps him across the face. According to director Peter Yates, she did not 'fake' the slap but actually did strike him, and fairly hard at that.
  
  
• Herman B. Wells, the 11th president of Indiana University, Bloomington, University patriarch and longtime chancellor can be seen clearly in the crowd shots during the Little 500.
  
  
• The Aug. 4, 2003, issue of Sports Illustrated listed "Breaking Away" as #8 on their list of the top 50 sports movies of all time.
  
  
• The production team decided to call the Bloomington townies "cutters" because they felt the actual local nickname ("stoners" or "stonies") would draw a parallel to drug references for viewers who were not raised in the area.
  
  
• Daniel Stern's film debut.
  
  

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