Pedal Mania is a cycling game for your smart trainer, drawn in pixel art. Your watts move the rider and the climbs push back through the pedals, so the workout is the real thing. Everything around it is a game: crits to win, robots to out-sprint, cups on our own island, and the odd alien cheering you up a volcano on Mars.
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.
109 routes so far, in 29 countries, with more on the way.
The season's one-day classics and stage races, cut down to fit a weeknight: the finales, the cobbled sectors and the summit finishes, month by month. 36 races so far, each named after the place it's ridden.
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.
The locals come out to watch. Greys, reptilians in suits and ties, mantises and a few stranger ones hang round the outposts and cheer you over the top.
Now and then a saucer goes over. Some stop, hover and shine a beam down for a closer look at you. Try not to wave.
12 road World Championships, from Richmond in 2015 to Montreal in 2026. Each circuit is the lap the elite men's road race was decided on. You ride it as a loop from the finish line, for as many laps as your legs will take.
Race day at the line: a gantry with the host's name, fans leaning on the barriers, a grandstand on the finishing straight and the podium just past the line.
The climbs that made each race, with thicker crowds waving their nations' flags.
Each host city's landmark stands by the straight, and the country around it looks the part: maples turning red round Montreal, red earth and banana groves at Kigali and fjord country at Bergen.
8 city-centre circuits in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Belgium and the Netherlands, each drawn from its race's own course: a kilometre or two round the blocks, from a mass start under the lights. Short, loud and over before your legs have worked out what happened.
CRIT: So many laps, first over the line wins. Primes on the laps the bell rings for.
POINTS CRIT: A sprint every five laps for 5, 3, 2 and 1, the last one double. Lap the field for 20.
ELIMINATION CRIT: Every lap the last rider over the line is out, until two sprint for it.
CIRCUIT RACE: So many laps of a longer circuit, first over the line wins. No primes, and nobody is pulled.
Every corner is where it is in the street: everyone brakes into it and sprints out of it, robots too. Barriers, banners, hay bales and a cheering crowd line the road.
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.
Sessions give gold, silver and bronze, and the medal table ranks riders, clubs and nations, gold first.
Make a cup from one of 4 programmes: THE FULL PROGRAMME, OMNIUM NIGHT, SPRINTERS' NIGHT and AGAINST THE CLOCK. Keep it public, private with a join code, or for your club.
Its programme shows in your own time zone, and the game tells you when a lobby opens.
Race your best ride as a ghost, or the route leader's, or the fastest woman's or man's. Robot riders hold the watts you give them, so there's always someone to chase, even at six in the morning.
Ghosts replay real rides, second by second: MY BEST, MY PR, ROUTE LEADER, FASTEST WOMAN, FASTEST MAN.
Up to three robots on the road, each from 80 to 500 W, in their own jerseys.
Chips under your numbers show the gap to each ghost, and whether you're gaining.
STAGE 3 · THE ISLAND
PEDALONIA
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.
Under the pixels it's a proper training tool. Your speed comes only from the watts your trainer measures, the climbs push back through the pedals, and every ride keeps its numbers. The sweat is real. The aliens are optional.
THE LAB
Find your FTP with a Ramp Test, a 20-Minute FTP Test or the full hour, in a pixel laboratory with scientists bustling about and a robot coach.
The machines hum along with your effort. You see the result in plain words and choose whether it becomes your FTP; it never changes by itself.
Lab tests are private: only you ever see them.
YOUR NUMBERS
Power, heart rate, cadence and speed over the ride, your best efforts from 5 seconds to an hour, and your personal bests.
A rider card like the pros get: six specialties scored 1 to 99 (one day, GC, time trial, sprint, climber and hills), an overall, your type and your place in the ranking.
Send rides to Strava with the route's map, or share your page, a ride or a league: each link unfurls as a card drawn in the game's pixels.
SMART TRAINERS
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.
HOW A 10% CLIMB FEELS
TRAINER DIFFICULTY50%
DESCENTS ARE HALVED FIRST.
STAGE 5 · TOGETHER
RIDE 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.
Every route, climb, track event and crit circuit keeps its own board: overall, men and women, by age group, weight, country and period. Make a league, pick its routes and dates, and race it like a grand tour with your mates: stages, general classification, points, mountains, youth and women.
An example general classification, with fictional riders.
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.
How did my riding go this week? Where did my time in the zones go?
Compare my last two rides on the Harbour Loop. Where did I lose time?
Set up a sprinters' night Track Cup for my club next Friday at 7 pm.
THE LAST ONE NEEDS MANAGE
FINISH LINE · GET IT
ON YOUR MAC, PC, IPHONE AND IPAD
Pedal Mania is built and ridden on a Mac and an iPad first. Download it free for macOS, Windows and Linux (version 26.11.3), or join the iPhone and iPad beta on TestFlight. The Apple TV app is in testing, and joins the beta soon.
MACOS · DOWNLOADWINDOWS · DOWNLOADLINUX · DOWNLOADIPHONE AND IPAD · BETAAPPLE TV · TESTINGANDROID · LATER
Everything in the game is free: every route, the track, crits, Pedalonia's cups, group rides, leagues and Track Cups. Pro is only for riding further than 20 km a month on a trainer.
FREE
Free account
20 KM A MONTH
with a smart trainer or power meter, and everything else included.
Every road route, track event and crit circuit
Ghosts and robot riders
Group rides, races and Track Cups
Leaderboards, leagues and clubs
The simulated trainer, never counted
The allowance starts again on the 1st of every month (UTC)
Prices in US dollars (USD). Checkout can show them in your own currency, and shows any tax and the total before you pay.
YOUR RIDES, ONLINE
Sign in with your email address: no password, just a code. Then link the game from Settings, ACCOUNT, with the code it shows, and your rides land here: personal bests, leaderboards, leagues, clubs, group rides and cups.
