The Games
Road Cycling Tour
Designer: Lajos Brons
Publisher: Papercut Games
Type: Board,
Card,
Sports-themed
BGG entry:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/28458
Available from:
http://www.lc.dds.nl/papercut/RCT.html
RCT is a road cycling simulation intended to be flexible enough to simulate any multi-stage road cycling event. With the track/road tiles any stage can be built (I recommend a 20km/tile scale with the exception of mountains which may need more tiles (1=hill; 2=small mountain; 3=big mountain)). It can be used to simulate single stage events as well. In fact there is no reason why that would be impossible, but I prefer the multi-stage races because those offer much more possibilities for team tactics and rider specialisation.
Which brings us the next level of flexibility: the riders. The characteristics or qualities of the riders are represented with speed counters that can be used to replace dice. Movement is basically roll-and-move with some additional rules for closing gaps (as a simulation of slipstreaming) and breakaways. Riders in a team can be highly specialised and in multi-stage races it generally pays of to have a rider who excels in mountains and time trials for the overall classification, another to back him up (in case the first one falls badly); a sprinter; and a number of riders who can be used as helpers or for other purposes (specialised riders for stages that aren't appropriate for either sprinters or climbers, for example). The rules are intended to facilitate many standard team tactics in real road cycling.
Finally, there are special rules for time trials and team time trials; two types of advanced rules for even more flexibility; and a card game version (to bring on holiday) that is based on the advanced rules but adds some extra twists.