Cycling is one of the best things you can do to keep yourself active. Whether you enjoy heading out into the countryside to enjoy the fresh air or cycle into the city to get to work, it’s an excellent way to maintain your fitness. Although cyclists often maintain a serious demeanor when they’re out on the road, there are several games that they can play to keep things interesting and to stay motivated while they’re working out. In this article, we introduce you to several games that cyclists can enjoy both indoors on stationary bikes, as well as outdoors while out on the road.
Stationary Tag
Tag is an excellent way of keeping things interesting while part of a cycling class indoors. It’s a really easy game to introduce and ensures the players stay motivated throughout. The group leader selects two cyclists to participate – one is the chaser, and the other is the chased. The leader increases her speed, and the chaser has to catch her. When the chaser reaches the speed of the chased, they’ve successfully been ‘tagged,’ and they then choose a different person in the group to take up the chase.
Tour de France Game
If you’re working out on a turbo trainer, you can set up your iPad and download the official Tour de France game. Few things are more inspiring than enjoying the incredible scenery and the famous routes taken on by the world’s elite cyclists while you’re burning the calories on a trainer. While it may now be the same as watching the Tour de France live, or using one of the many betting sites to guess who’ll win, playing a game on the iPad ensures you can push through the pain barrier and take inspiration from the world’s best cyclists! If you’re not into the Tour de France game, you can find a whole host of other games that you can download on your iPad.
Circuits
If you want to keep motivated and introduce competition when exercising indoors, you can set up circuits. Split into a couple of groups and allocate a specific ride focus to each, such as standing climbs or flat sprints, for instance. After a set amount of time, each group switches their focus and performs a different exercise. To make things competitive, either the group leader or the instructor keeps track of the time each group takes to complete the circuits. The winning group is the one that completes them in the shortest amount of time.
City Limit Sign Sprints
When you’re riding outdoors as a group, city limit sign sprints are an excellent way to incorporate some friendly competition into your ride. The premise of the game is simple enough, when you reach a city limit sign, you organize a group sprint and see who wins over a prescribed distance. This should be agreed in advance, and you can either ride to a specific landmark or perhaps plan your sprints over a specified distance. If you’re planning these sprints, be sure to consider traffic and stick to the laws of the road.
Uphill Handicap Race
Setting out the parameters for an uphill handicap race is an excellent way to keep things competitive if you have riders of various capabilities in your group. If you’re able to identify the most proficient hill climbers out of the group, you can set their starting positions accordingly before a steep climb. As you would imagine, the slowest riders start first, and the fastest riders start later. How you set your handicaps is up to you, but be prepared for some serious competition! The guys behind will do everything they can to catch those who started ahead of them.
How do these Games Help Cyclists?
While cycling is a lot of fun, it can sometimes get a little repetitive, particularly if you’re cycling indoors and do it purely for exercise. While cycling outside is more varied and enjoyable, it’s still important to keep things interesting by playing games and having fun with your riding companions. The games that we’ve shared here ensure your rides will be fun and engaging, but they also increase healthy competition between riders, as they encourage you to try and get the better of your fellow riders.
If you’re playing games while on the road, just be sure to keep your focus and don’t let things get out of hand. After all, you need to ensure you’re safe and concentrating on the road in front of you, so your games need to be responsible and considerate of the current driving conditions.
