HomeFeaturesTour de France 2022
I’m riding bicycles in loads of games to mark the Tour De FranceJoin me on my Tour De Jeux, starting with the official TDF game
Join me on my Tour De Jeux, starting with the official TDF game
The Tour De France, the grandest race in professional cycling, started today. Across three weeks, 176 cyclists will ride 3328 kilometres (2068 miles) winding through France, Denmark, Belgium, and Switzerland, including the Alps and Pyrenees. As a keen cyclist and avid Tour watcher myself, I’m excited. So in celebration, over the coming weeks I’ll be gabbing about the Tour De France, cycling, and bikes in a wide variety of video games with my ownTour De Jeux, from big-budget open-world extravaganzas to cute wee indie adventures. Let’s start in the obvious place: the official Tour De France video game.
Tour de France 2022 gameplayA few minutes where I sucked Tadej Pogačar’s wheel, scarfed my snacks, fluffed a sprint, then fast-forwarded.Watch on YouTube
Tour de France 2022 gameplay
Tour De France 2022, the video game, is strange. It doesn’t feel riding a bike as a cyclist, nor does it feel like watching the Tour De France as a spectator. It’s a slimline simulation sitting in an uneasy middle ground, and even the game itself says large parts are probably boring.
Every rider looking like the exact same mid-thirties French man is alarming.
With moment-to-moment racing optional, the game is all about managing energy. Mash A for a burst of speed and it’ll burn through your self-replenishing red energy bar, while your blue energy bar is slow to deplete and reflects overall weariness. When you’re nearing the final sprint or the banners for bonus points, you want to have enough left in your legs. I do not find it an interesting system to manage. Given the focus on energy, I am also sorry that our revitalising supplies are refilled magically at feed points rather than making us grab a tote bag full of snacks from the arm of a fella (officially titled a soigneur) standing in the road. Cycling is one of the few sports where eating during competition is encouraged, which I consider a strong point in its favour, and I do always find that a nice little low-tech human moment (I’d be even more delighted if riders stillraided bistros for booze).
While the game suggests you fast-forward through quiet parts, I relish these moments in the real world race as a spectator. For the next three weeks, I’ll have the Tour De France playing on my second monitor, mostly acting as ‘slow TV’. It passes beautiful landscapes, from quaint villages and gentle summer countryside to rolling rivers and dizzying mountain passes. The commentators (I watch onGCN/Eurosport) often become tour guides, pointing out interesting places and landmarks, telling histories and offering little facts. Vitally, they’re also storytellers in a soap opera which unfolds across the race. As in most sports, the heart is in stories, and the Tour De France builds and retells tales about riders, teams, the race itself, and even the bikes.
I appreciate the first-person camera option
That’s what the Tour De France is to me: a sightseeing soap opera. It’s likeCoach Tripexcept on £12,000 bicycles and the lads never skip leg day.
I will stick with this game, for now. I will start a fresh save (my Wout van Aert is doing poorly, though he is King of the Mountains) and ride alongside the real race each day. Maybe drama will develop, or at least it’ll be interesting to see its intepretations of the landscapes. I wish it felt more like riding a bike. I’d forgive a lot if it felt a tiny bit more like riding a bike.
That is not Wout van Aert with his arms in the air.
I cycle a fair bit myself. While I’m no racer, I ride many evenings and on weekends usually hit my favourite 80km route along the coast. That’s three-and-a-half hours to me and I relish the slow moments when ‘nothing’ is happening, full of little pleasures. I like shifting gear with each small change in terrain to keep my legs spinning at an optimal rate. I like to look down and watch the chainset turn with my feet. I like to look ahead and watch my shadow. I enjoy the hum of tyres on tarmac and the faint whirr of a well-lubricated bike, and bristle at the noise of skids and shudders on a rough surface or ambitious turn. I like the sound of birds in trees and wind through leaves. I like remembering the regular timing to eat and drink. I like fast descents and do, eventually, like the few wee climbs. The experience of being on a bike is plenty pleasurable but here it’s too quiet, too flat, too dead. While I don’t expect a video game to capture physical sensations of cycling, some others do evoke a little of the joy, the freedom, and the tension.
