Now that we’re into the thick of Classics season and watching not one but two WorldTour stage races this week, our brains have shifted fully into bike racing mode – and to celebrate, we’re launching a game to test your cycling mind. We are thrilled to introduce … BikeGrid!
Every weekday, starting this week, you will have a chance to flex your cycling knowledge as you try to match current pro cyclists with categories laid out in a grid. Here’s how it works.
We will give you three columns and three rows of simple categories that apply to certain members of the pro peloton, like “stage winner at the Giro d’Italia” or “Australian.” That makes for a total of nine spots on the grid, where each spot corresponds to two categories. Your goal is to name an active road pro that fits the descriptions of both categories listed in a square’s row and column. In other words, Thibaut Pinot and Greg Van Avermaet are not valid answers. Peter Sagan, however, found himself a Continental team to race on this year even though he told people he was retiring from the road, so he actually is a valid answer.
Riders from both the men’s and the women’s pelotons are eligible unless the category specifically says otherwise; categories involving the Tour of Flanders or Tour de France, for instance, apply to the women’s races and the men’s races alike.
As an example of how it all works, you might find yourself trying to name a rider who is both “Danish” and a “Tour de France stage winner.” Jonas Vingegaard obviously fits that bill, and so he is a valid answer for that square. It is, however, a bit more interesting than that. You want to achieve the best rarity score you can; more unique answers get you a better rarity score. That means that if most players name Vingegaard for that space on the grid but you instead name Søren Kragh Andersen or Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, you’re going to do better.
Once you have used a rider to fill a square in the grid, you cannot use that rider again, so be judicious with where you use your picks, especially if you think they might be a more obscure selection for this or that category. Sam Bennett is a Tour de France stage winner, for instance, but he might earn you a better score if you use him for a box that calls for a WorldTour one-day winner, seeing as fewer people probably remember that he won Eschborn-Frankfurt or the OxyClean Classic.
If all that sounds like your kind of fun, head on over to bikegrid.escapecollective.com and sign in. If you have an Escape Collective account you can log right in on that page; otherwise, register a new account there.
Every weekday, you’ll get a new grid to challenge your cycling knowledge – and a new opportunity to brag about your score to your cycling friends. Let the games begin!
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