SOLVED. YA bicycle racing 1970s [s]

[Akmar]

This book was memorable for two scenes. In the first few pages the cyclist dreams of being a racer while riding out of town on the highway, when a famous racing team van passes by, which the cyclist recognizes. He speeds up and catches the van and rides close behind it. The driver notices and speeds up. But the cyclist keeps up. Watching the mirror in amazement the driver brings the van to 80 mph, and still the cyclist hangs on. At that crucial final moment the police siren turns on, the truck pulls over to get a ticket, and the cyclist passes by in triumph.
The other scene I remember, the cyclist scrounges cash to get the most competitive bike he can afford, then dismantles it with his friends in his mom’s kitchen. Amongst other low-dollar improvements he boils the saddle hide in olive oil until it’s soft and supple. Last thing before the big race, he shaves his legs, and just imagines the scene if his father were to catch him doing this.
I’ve had good luck finding other dimly-remembered YA fiction, I found Tripods trilogy made into a UK mini-series, Deathwatch made into a Michael Douglas movie, and Space Skimmer by David Gerrold (of Tribbles fame). I’m really hopeful about this bicycle-themed YA book! Thank you!

[SamSpayedPI]

Except for the part about the olive oil, it sounds a lot like the movie "Breaking Away" (1979). Maybe there was a novelization of the movie, or the short-lived TV series that followed?

[Akmar]

Wow, thanks a lot! Ok I watched the movie (thank you, Internet) and I think this is the story I had remembered. I'd definitely like to find the novelization. In the movie they totally overlooked the story about the race bike, the "road master". The deal was that nobody would get in trouble for the cafeteria fight as long as the town kids were allowed to enter the Little 500 race at the University. So the race is a 200 lap track race, however, all the bikes are standard, and of course the University controls all of them. So the University kids find the most broken-down one and that's the one given to the town kids to race. This is the part where the town kids, the "cutters", have to rebuild the bike, and the Dave character rebuilds it better than anything else the University has except I think in the book the whole group participated, but in the movie only Dave was working on it. Another thing was they only had a day or half a day to do all this and at one point Dave boiled the saddle on the stove in olive oil (and his mom was perplexed by this), but it softened the saddle so it became about as good as a real Italian racing saddle.

[Ayshe]

So it's Breaking Away?

[Akmar]

Wow, thanks so much! Looks to be :)

[SamSpayedPI]

I'm sure of it; the novel is available in The Internet Archives, and the olive oil scene begins on page 165.

[Akmar]

Thanks a lot everyone. Here's the story of Dave Blase, I guess he had been the inspiration of the screenplay, movie, and book. Incidentally that screenplay did win an Oscar so I guess there must have been something memorable about it! :)

"35 years later, the man who inspired 'Breaking Away' is still biking"
http://archive.news.indiana.edu/relea...