A free online cycling race game — how it works

PackAttack is a road cycling race you play in your browser, on a phone or a computer, against a full field of thirty riders. There is nothing to download and nothing to pay. You pick an effort level and a line across the road; the race does the rest — and the race has a mind of its own.

Drafting: the whole game is the wheel in front

Sitting behind another rider saves up to about half your effort at bunch speed. That shelter is a magnet: glued to a wheel you get all of it, drift half a metre off the line and it fades. Fast, flat roads make the draft worth a fortune; a steep climb makes it worth almost nothing, which is why the climbs are where races come apart. Crosswinds move the shelter to one side of the wheel, and the field learns to ride echelons.

Energy: your heart rate is the tank

Ride above your threshold and your heart rate climbs — slowly at first, then fast. Hit the redline and you blow up: your power is capped until you have recovered, and recovery only happens when you ease off. A sprint lasts about fifteen seconds. On top of that sits a race-long fatigue that only ever climbs: hard work in the wind wears you down, work done in the draft does not. Sharing turns in a breakaway is not politeness, it is the only way a break survives.

Seven effort levels, two arrows

• ↑ / ↓ — effort: Brake, Recover, Easy, Tempo, Hard, Attack, Sprint
• ← / → — steer across the road, onto a wheel or out of the wind
• On a phone: tap the effort ladder and drag across the road

A living peloton

The thirty riders you race are not a moving wall. Each has a personality — aggressive or patient, a climber or a sprinter — and they attack, form breakaways, rotate relays, organise a chase, box you in, sit up when a move is doomed, and build lead-out trains for the sprint. Every race tells a different story, and the live ticker tells it as it happens: who attacked, who is bridging, when the bunch has decided to bring the break back.

Stages, special stages and grand tours

• Three stages — Easy (a small, forgiving bunch), Normal (the Alpine Loop: breaks go, the bunch chases), Hard (nervous, and it never waits).
• A daily special stage — a real course with the day's modifier: crosswinds, fog, night, rain, cobbles, gravel, a tunnel, a level crossing, a spectator pinch, an elimination format, an individual time trial. Everyone rides the same conditions, and the day has a leaderboard.
• Grand tours — three to five stages, one classification, the same rivals stage after stage.

Online multiplayer

Create a game, share the four-digit PIN, and friends join with a nickname. Humans take grid slots in the field and the bots fill the rest; the race is run on a server so everyone sees the same race.

Replays, photo finishes and achievements

Every race ends with a replay of the sprint, a photo finish when it was too close to call, and a results table you can share as a link. Achievements track what you have done — the first win, a summit crossed first, a breakaway that stuck.

Free, on any device

PackAttack runs in any modern browser, on desktop and mobile, and can be installed to your home screen as an app. It is free to play, with no ads and no account: pick a nickname and you are on the start line.