There's something vaguely shameful but comforting about a cliché sports film. It's like putting on the cozy track pants you keep around for TV night: You're not sure you'd want someone else to witness your enjoyment, but man, it feels welcome and right. Based on the true story of Graeme Obree – a Scottish amateur cyclist who broke several world records on a bike of his own design – The Flying Scotsman is actually two comfort-filled cozily cliché films in one: The inspirational sports tale and the inspirational triumph-over-mental-illness movie. And this makes it easy to make fun of The Flying Scotsman – I've been calling it "Good Will Biking," "A Beautiful Bike," even "Chariots of Bike" – but, again, you don't go to movies like this expecting them to be revelatory re-inventions; you go to see them to watch all the bases rounded, how the cast and crew enact all the expected moments.

The Flying Scotsman starts with a disheveled man riding a bike into mist-shrouded woods, then walking it through Scotland's meadows and fens and trees. It's, as we soon realize, a one-way trip; the rider hangs a noose from a tree and prepares to hang himself. And then we flash back – into the life of Graeme Obree (played by Johnny Lee Miller), and to the things that have led him to the woods, in the rain, to die. We see Graeme in happier days – or, at least, not-suicidal days. Obree's an amateur cyclist – and a good one. But he can't keep his bike shop open, and he's working as a courier to feed his family. One day, he meets a fellow courier, Malky (Billy Boyd) who seems to know all the angles; when Graeme introduces himself, Malky's matter-of-fact: "I know who you are; I follow cycling." It's a nice trick to establish Graeme for us, the audience – setting Graeme up as someone with a few minor records, a certain degree of renown.

And even with plenty of things pulling at his attention, a news piece about an attempt to break the world one-hour record catches Obree's eye: He's inspired to do it first, and do it better, on a bike of his own design – despite lacking any backing outside of friends, family and faith in himself. And it's the last part of that trinity that's most challenging – Obree's susceptible to fits of wracking self-doubt that are matched by moments of steely determination, blank and bleak despair matched by bold and brave determination. And Miller – best known to audiences from his work in Trainspotting or Hackers – nails those swings perfectly. We see Graeme so determined to win that he tries to break the one-hour record twice in a 24-hour period, after the first attempt doesn't go so well – putting himself through an experience few of us can contemplate, never mind attempt. But we also see him afterward, hunched in a darkened stairwell crying softly as nearby well-wishers and spectators drink champagne in the light. ...

Director Douglas Mackinnon is an old TV hand in the United Kingdom, and his feature debut is neither flashy nor workmanlike. He's got an eye for a good moment, here and there, as well . In what may be the best example, we watch from the inside of the track as Obree whizzes by, rooting for him along with the other spectators; Mackinnon will cut to a shot of Obree alone, fighting physics and himself, wind resistance pulling at his very flesh and the look on his face – "his hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin," to quote another depressed Brit – says more than any dialogue could.

And there are standard comforting moments of cliché characters, too: Malky is a plucky scamp who believes in Graeme to the end – and even if the character's romance with a motorcycle cop feels tacked-on and cheap, Boyd still provides a welcome bit of comic relief between the attempted world records and attempted suicides. Brian Cox shows up as a cycling enthusiast who offers Obree the use of his shed to make his innovative bike – and turns out to be a parish priest with his own burdens who offers Obree a helping-but-not-heavy hand in his struggles. Some will complain it seems like Cox is in every film these days, to which I can only say a) he is not and b) would that, in fact, be such a bad thing? There's even a convenient nemesis in Ernst Hagemann (Steven Berkoff) –a pinched, officious and worst of all Teutonic head of the World Cycling Federation who keeps on trying to shove Obree's attempts off the record books – as one nameless baddie points out, how can manufacturers sell racing fans their bikes when the champ is riding something he made himself? As for Obree's wife Anne, she's played by Laura Fraser, but it's a thankless part – Anne looks on aghast as Graeme scavenges a bearing assembly from the family's washing machine, Anne looks on concerned after Graeme has one of his episodes.

The Flying Scotsman ends as it should – wth a series of title cards teling us what happened next, where the real-life people depicted are now, and so on. It's, again, comforting – and between the burr of the accents and the roar of the crowd in The Flying Scotsman, there's a well-made film about the nature of depression, the ecstatic highs and the numbing lows – or maybe just the simple fact that depression can strike the most driven and talented despite their aspirations and gifts. I don't think I'll do too much research into the life of the real Graeme Obree – I did that with John Nash after A Beautiful Mind, and all that did was got me steaming mad at Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman for their slick, homophobic quid pro quo to get the rights and earn one of history's more undeserved Oscars. But watching Miller-as-Obree was, as I said, comforting and agreeable – and even if The Flying Scotsman doesn't really ever depart from a pretty standard-issue inspirational sports-flick template, as Graeme Obree proved, you can still do impressive and mighty things on a fixed track.