Bloomington's Kray-Mawhorr has his 'Breaking Away' moment, winning with the Cutters

Inspired by the movie "Breaking Away," so why not a Hollywood ending for senior Torin Kray-Mawhorr?

Growing up, the Bloomington South grad knew all about knocking around in abandoned quarries on a hot summer day, but was hardly inured in the cycling culture, giving baseball and running a try with the Panthers. Neither sport clicked like the tick of the bearings on a bike.

"Honestly, all through high school, I didn't know what Little 5 was," Kray-Mawhorr said. "Coming into IU, I'd watched 'Breaking Away' the previous summer and I grew up at Rooftop Quarry. My mom lived in this neighborhood called Sanders (just north of Smithville) so my whole childhood, my brother would take me out there. I'd swim out there. It was my place to be."

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By chance, Kray-Mawhorr found his calling in biking. And so, like the movie stars who were taking a dip at Rooftop in the opening scene, he found himself in the Little 500 and in a finish as dramatic as any script could provide at Bill Armstrong Stadium on Saturday.

The field trailed Sigma Phi Epsilon for most of the day and by as much as 20 seconds. But the Cutters and three other teams caught up with 52 laps to go and their top riders gathered themselves for the final sprint. Kray-Mawhorr, who took over with five laps left, bolted to the front as he rounded Turn 4 on lap 199 and didn't let anyone catch him, beating Delta Tau Delta by less than .14 seconds, with Sigma Phi Epsilon another .13 seconds in back of that.

The win extends Cutters' record for titles to 15 and is their first since 2019. It took all hands with Jacob Koone, Peyton Gaskill and another Bloomington native, Judah Thompson, playing their parts for a winning time of 2:15:28.608.

"We knew it was going to be a sprint," Kray-Mawhorr said. "Jacob was super fresh, so we got him on the bike and then we got Peyton on the bike. We had known a long time, the final rotation we wanted to do. Peyton's a great gap getter, we knew he would be able to sprint around everybody and give me the bike with a gap.

"Then for me, I rode the velodrome all summer, and I just rode it like I did any other sprint. It was five laps to go, I sat in the back. Two laps to go, I knew I needed to get into position. An old Cutter, Eric Young (rider for the 2011 champs), always told me, getting the position? Hardest part. And it really was. I had to fight Josh Herbst of Delta for that position super, super hard over in Turn 3. I got it and after I took the white flag, I knew I had it."

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Going for a bike ride

Kray-Mawhorr has worked his way up the chain, starting his sophomore year of high school with a tiny 52cm bicycle that was used by his dad's girlfriend. He upgraded to a $300 down-tube shifter and then made a fortuitous visit to his uncle in Hawaii.

"He's been around bikes forever," Kray-Mawhorr said. "He got me a bike, got me into it. I trained my junior year, rode a lot. My senior year, I lived with him for six months in Hawaii."

And coming back to Bloomington, the Little 500 race was on his bucket list.

"So my freshmen year of college, I want to join the Cutters, right?" he said. "I got on there. Since then, it's just been four years of wanting it really, really bad.

"And it took a lot of growing. I was a kid when I was a freshman and every year I learned and I grew so much because of the family of the Cutters. I found my family. And it's so fun because all my hometown friends are here, yelling at me."

Graduation comes soon, but he's nowhere near getting out of cycling. It's become a calling.

"Little 5 is a very good thing to focus on," Kray-Mawhorr said. "I'm going to be around bikes the rest of my life, whether it's working at a bike shop or being a professional. Ideally, I'll get a ride in Europe.

"I like bikes. They're good for everybody. I love everything about cycling, down to greasing a bearing, to winning a race. I love it."

Big-time freshman

The Cutters' other townie, Thompson, is a Harmony School graduate, triathlete and distance swimmer who qualified for the state finals as a senior after spending a portion of the year at Bloomington South.

Thompson's father, Paul, has a past connection with the Cutters, so it was a natural fit. His junior year of high school, Judah started going on local group rides and ended up meeting Kray-Mawhorr.

"After the 2022 race I went to the coach and said, 'I want to be a Cutter.' And I just trained so hard.

"It's hard to put into words. I had a lot doubt going into the race, if I was going to be able to do it."

He did. Thompson made a mark, a big mark in fact, as a freshman, having no problems handling 12-15 lap shifts.

"I put in a lot of laps and it ended up working," Thompson said. "I thought I was actually killing the team and it turns out I was helping them."

"Freshman rookie riders don't do what Judah did," Kray-Mawhorr said. "He came out here, he's an amazing rider and wanted to be on the Cutters.

"A lot of the race, the hardest thing was for him mentally. He'd come off the bike, 'I'm gonna stop. I didn't do it right.' And every single time, 'Dude, you're doing it! You're doing great. I'm rested.'"

Oh, brothers

There were a couple times during the race that Thompson was on the track at the same time as his older brother Kobe, a member of Novus, which placed 20th. Like Judah, Kobe had the time of his life in his first Little 5.

"It was such a good experience," Thompson said. "I had no idea what it was going to be like. I thought it was going to be kind of quiet. The music, the people, 'Oh my, god. What in the world is going on?' It was fun. I had an absolute blast. Especially having a little brother on a team, too."

It wasn't long before the boys had a chance meeting on the track.

"At the beginning," Kobe said. "They were playing 'Eye of the Tiger' and they just put me in there and I was right behind his wheel. The adrenalin. I wanted to get him so bad. It was my favorite part of the race."

Kobe, whose senior year project at Harmony was to attempt to swim the English Channel, is more of a swimmer than biker like his brother, but certainly in good enough shape to help his team for a few stretches.

"It definitely was a big transition going from swimming to biking," Kobe said. "I was so used to going back and forth for hours and hours. It's a lot nicer being outside on the bike."

Reeling them in

For a while, it looked like Sigma Phi Epsilon had taken its ball and gone home.

On lap 52, a big crash took down a dozen teams and left two riders needing medical attention. Not long after that, Sigma Phi Epsilon took off and built nearly a half-lap lead. They stayed out front until lap 148.

Cutters, Delta Tau Delta and Chi Alpha were initially there, then Phi Kappa Psi, which had been lapped at one point, charged all the way back, making a suddenly crowded field thinking it had a chance at the Borg-Warner trophy.

"It was just being patient and calm," Kray-Mawhorr said. "We've put so much work into this year, we were confident we were the strongest team out here. So we saw them go and we stayed on the positive side. They were using a lot of matches, 'OK, let's be patient and work with the other teams. Put me and Judah out there to do most of the work cause we had the legs.'

"It wasn't too much. We knew we were going to bring it back and we knew we were going to keep it together. And by the end of it it was, 'All right, it's probably a sprint,' and I'd been thinking about it for a long time. So I knew exactly what I was going to do."

MEN'S LITTLE 500 RESULTS (time or total laps completed out of 200): 1. Cutters, 2:15:28.608; 2. Delta Tau Delta, 2:15:28.74; 3. Sigma Phi Epsilon, 2:15:28.871; 4. Chi Alpha 2:15:29.653; 5. Phi Kappa Psi, 2:15:29.664; 6. Phi Gamma Delta; 7. Sigma Alpha Epsilon; 8. Beta Sigma Psi; 9. Phi Delta Theta; 10. IUDM; 11. Ghost Cycling; 12. 3PH; 13. Gray Goat; 14. Alpha Sigma Phi; 15. Forest; 16. Bears; 17. Alpha Kappa Psi; 18. Sigma Nu; 19. Cinzano; 20. Novus; 21. Evans Scholars; 22. CSF Cycling; 23. Lambda Chi Alpha; 24. Delta Sigma Pi; 25. Pi Kappa Alpha; 26. Human Wheels; 27. Beta Theta Pi; 28. Tau Epsilon Phi; 29. Alpha Kappa Lambda; 30. Wild Aces; 31. Phi Sigma Kappa; 32. Chi Phi; 33. Army.

Contact Jim Gordillo at jgordillo@heraldt.com and follow on Twitter @JimGordilo.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington's Kray-Mawhorr has 'Breaking Away' moment in Little 500