PEDALMANIA

STAGE 1 · RIDE

Every road on Earth in here is a real one, drawn from OpenStreetMap or a ride's GPS track. The climbs are where they really are, and so are the cobbles and the gravel. The road threads through villages built as a chain of tiny isometric islands, with a lake or the sea lapping at the verge.

• Climbs found and numbered, with their length and gradient, so you know exactly how long it's going to hurt.
• The profile runs along the bottom of the screen, two kilometres ahead.
• 139 routes so far, in 31 countries, with more on the way.

When Earth gets too easy, take your trainer to Mars, the Moon and Venus. The courses come from the maps that orbiters and a rover sent home, and each world has its own dirt and sky: rusty dust under a butterscotch sky on Mars, grey dust under a black one on the Moon, and on Venus, lava glowing through the cracks in a thick yellow haze.

• Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system, at a tenth of its size so every ramp has its real gradient: 34.5 km and +2,053 m up to the caldera rim. Or ride it at true size: 345.2 km and +20,529 m. Bring snacks.
• Gale Crater follows Curiosity's own tracks, at true size, from where the rover landed up the slopes of Mount Sharp.
• Tycho takes you over the rim of a crater on the Moon and up its central peak. Maxwell Montes goes up the west face of the highest mountains on Venus.

12 track events in 9 real velodromes, each hall drawn from its real outline around a 250 m track: the boards banked in the bends, the crowd in the stands, the lap board and the bell.

• Against the clock: flying 200 m, flying lap, 500 m time trial, kilo, 3 km pursuit and 4 km pursuit. Each has one board across every velodrome, and ghosts to chase.
• In a bunch: scratch race, points race, tempo race, elimination, keirin and match sprint. The robots draft, attack, chase the sprints and fade once they're spent, at club, national or world level.
• The keirin rolls out behind the derny, your pursuit opponent starts on the far straight, and the match sprint is best of three.

A proper track meet for up to 10 riders over one day or up to 28. Live sessions are raced in rooms at set times; sessions against the clock are ridden in a window, against the other entrants' ghosts.

• The sprint: a flying 200 m seeds a bracket of best-of-three matches, through to the final and the race for bronze.
• The keirin: a final behind the derny, after heats when more than six enter.
• The omnium: scratch, tempo, elimination and the points race in one evening, with robots to fill the bunch.

STAGE 3 · THE ISLAND

Pedalonia is our own island, made for racing. A lap takes ten to fifteen minutes: round the harbour past the fish market, up the cobbled ramp to the clock tower, up the snowy hairpins, through the chocolate factory, or dead flat across the salt. And the last cup takes you up: a road through the clouds, and a road of every colour out among the stars. 17 circuits in 11 cantons so far, with 3 gently rolling cantonal roads between them.

• BIDON CUP, BELL CUP, SPROCKET CUP and BANDS CUP: four races each against 11 robots, 15, 12, 10 … 1 points a place, and gold, silver or bronze for the top three.
• Pick the robots' level for the cup: club, national or world. The game keeps your best finish in each cup at each level, trophy and all.
• Race day in the island's colours: the canton's gantry, its banners and a grandstand at the line, and its landmark by the road, from the harbour's clock tower to the lighthouse on the lagoon.

Pedal Mania talks to smart trainers over Bluetooth: KICKR, Elite, Saris and the others that speak FTMS, Wahoo's own control and Tacx's FE‑C. Wahoo trainers with Direct Connect work over Wi-Fi. Power meters, cadence sensors and heart-rate straps pair too.

• The road's gradient sets the resistance, so climbs push back through the pedals.
• Trainer difficulty decides how much of a climb you feel. It changes how hard the pedals push, never your speed.
• Pair once and it reconnects at launch. No trainer yet? Ride the simulated one.

STAGE 5 · TOGETHER

Up to 10 people ride one route together, each on their own trainer at home. Open a room on a race route, a crit, a track event or a circuit on the island, wait in the lobby for your mates, and go on the lights.

• Races start from a grid, front row on the line. The server referees them: the laps, the sprints, the primes and the places.
• Robots can fill the field, so three friends can still race in a bunch of twelve.
• A field panel down the side says who's ahead and who's behind, in seconds and metres.
• Open rooms for anyone, club rooms for your club, and invite codes for the rest.

GROUP RIDES >

STAGE 6 · AGENTS

Connect Claude, ChatGPT or another AI app to your account and talk about your riding in plain words. It reads your rides, power and heart rate, so it can tell you where your week went or how your power curve has moved since the summer. Tick MANAGE when you connect and it'll run your leagues, Track Cups and clubs for you: less tapping, more riding.

• One address to paste into your app: https://mcp.pedalmania.cc/mcp. A Pedal Mania page opens, you sign in with your email code, and you choose READ, or READ and MANAGE.
• It acts as you, never more. It never sees your email address or your birthday, never buys anything, and never sees anyone else's private rides. DISCONNECT cuts it off at once.

CONNECT AN AGENT >