*French version this way!*
*Version with Elodie Adelle’s artwork is right here!*
The Tour de France was a pretty big thing when I was growing up and it is somehow associated in my mind with summer holidays, grandparents and my home, Bretagne. Age wise, I am ‘over the hill’ and definitely less enthusiastic about Le Tour as I was as a child. Doping, might make you a race winner, but it definitely gets you to the top as a dream breaker…
It might not be Tour season quite yet, and it might not be anytime soon…but who wouldn’t enjoy a nice, fun racing game? Especially when in lockdown with your kids and your access to the beautiful landscapes of France is, well, limited 🙂
Of course, being from Bretagne, both an amazing cycling territory and the most beautiful coastline known to man, we perfected the absolutely unbeatable cycling “board game” a long time ago: the BEACH!
Looking into what is out there on the subject, I came across a whole website of cycling board games through the ages. So I thought I’d add a personal contribution to the list.
It’s a cycling racing game so the idea is fairly simple: go from point A to point B and preferably get there first. Great idea, but still room for improvement, right? To make it more entertaining, you will be managing a team of 3 racers to whom you will allocate competence points in three fields: sprint(sprint), stamina (endurance), and climbing (grimpeur). You will then have to monitor the consumption of these competences to make sure your racers don’t blow before the finish line!
To get the race started…
- Get a couple of 6-sided dice, if you can’t get a 12 sided one,
- find 3 tokens for each player and a few additional tokens for the Speed Wheel,
- download the rules here,
- make yourself a speed wheel, or just use the one here,
- download the team management sheets, for teams blue, yellow, green, and red, or make your own at home (would love to see other players share some different designs!)
- download some some race tracks here, and here. Or make your own!
And as a good board game should have a good soundtrack, here are some suggestions:
If you have no beach available, get yourself some miniature cyclists, some chalk and draw your own L’Arrivée du Tour stage indoors, outdoors, wherever you can think of!
On Other Boards 
