A great many of us love sports movies; they’re uplifting, inspirational, and often based on a true story that teaches us about a person and event we didn’t know much about previously. But one sub-set of sports movies that we don’t think about often is movies about cycling. But over the past several decades, there have been plenty of truly great movies with a cycling theme. If movies about cycling are of any interest to you, here are four great movies you should check out.

First up is “Breaking Away,” which is one of the first cycling movies Hollywood made, doing so in 1979, as cycling started to gain popularity. This movie is about a group of the friends with an interest in cycling, set against the backdrop of a small town in the heartland of America. The lead character, who is played by Dennis Christopher, is a promising amateur, but his group of friends is greeted with hostility from the small college town. “Breaking Away” experienced both critical and commercial success, winning the Oscar for Best Screenplay in 1980.

A few years earlier, there was a Danish movie about cycling called “A Sunday in Hell.” This was a great documentary that covered the 1976 Paris-Roubaix race. The cycling stars of that era are featured in the film, which is well known for its opening sequence in which a mechanic is cleaning his bike. “A Sunday in Hell” does a great job of taking an in-depth look at the stars of cycling in the 1970s, as well as the excitement and passion of the fans in that era, and is a great movie for any cycling fan that’d like to learn about the stars of yesteryear.

One movie that many people will be familiar with is “The Flying Scotsman,” a 2006 biopic about Scottish cyclist Graeme Obree. The film tells the tale of Obree’s attempt to use his bike, dubbed ‘Old Faithful,’ despite it being made of washing machine parts. This is a classic sports movie that just happens to be about a cyclist, as it’s one of the most inspirational movies in the sports genre in the past decade. It also features some amazing cycling scenes that set the bar high for displaying cycling on the big screen.

Finally, there’s a more recent movie with a cycling component with 2011’s “The Kid with a Bike.” It tells the story of an 11-year-old boy who skips out on school to search for his bike after being abandoned by his father. Aside from the fact that the central focus of the movie is a bicycle, “The Kid with a Bike” features themes of love and family, and is a wonderfully moving and poignant movie that can be enjoyed by all audiences.

Anyone who pays attention to the sports world, and cycling in particular, has probably heard of the Tour de France. Most know it as a bike race, and aside from being the race that made Lance Armstrong famous, it is arguably the most prestigious bike race in the world. But what most people don’t know is that it’s just one of three major European cycling races. Together, the three races are referred to as the Grand Tours. For those who don’t know much about the Grand Tours, let’s take a closer look at these three bike races.

First up, the Vuelta a Espana, which translates to the Tour of Spain. The first running of the race was in 1935, and after missing a few years during the Spanish Civil War and World War II, the race has been run every year since 1955. The Tour de Spain is made up of 21 daylong stages, with two days of rest planned into the schedule, making it a 23-day event. The leader heading into each stage wears a red jersey to signify their lead. The race always wraps up in Spain’s capital city of Madrid, and always includes a grueling trek through the mountains of the Pyrenees, although the exact route changes every year, making it a new experience for riders every time. Of course, as the name implies, the race does take riders all throughout Spain, although the route has been known to take them into bordering countries at times.

Next is the Giro d’Italia, which translates to the Tour of Italy. Much like the Tour de Spain, the route changes every year and often involves a few twists and turns that temporarily lead racers into neighboring countries. In fact, on 11 different occasions, the race has started in a foreign country. For the most part, the race comes to an end in the city of Milan, but there have been plenty of exceptions to that over the years. For the Tour of Italy, the starting and finishing cities for each state change every year, as Italian cities all across the country are willing to pay large sums of money for the right to have one of the stages of the race start or finish in that city. Of course, the popularity of the race is so great that the investment is often a wise one for those cities. Just like the Tour de Spain, there are 21 stages over the course of 23 days, with two days to rest during the course of the race. In Italy, the mountainous stages of the race come courtesy of the Alps, while the leader heading into each stage earns the right to wear the coveted pink jersey.

Finally, there is the Tour de France. Aside from the time during the World Wars, the Tour de France has been run every year since 1903, and much like the other two races, the route is different every year, and consists of 21 stages spread out across 23 days. Also, while the focus is obviously on France, the race does incorporate nearby countries, and on 21 occasions the race has begun in a foreign country. Although the race is known for its mountains, there are stages that are quite flat. However, the race incorporates both the Pyrenees and Alps, creating plenty of challenging mountains for riders to climb. There have been various starting points of the race since, but since its inception, the Tour de France has ended on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Finally, as you may already know, the leader at the start of every stage has the honor of wearing the famous yellow jersey.