This is a game that entered this site in December 2023, and it did so in the unpublished games section. A year, some testing, and a few presentations at games fairs and conventions later, this game can be considered officially released, even though it is in a print-and-play version, and one that may require some tweaking on your part.

Grand Plateau is a game that tries to represent all aspects of a cycling race, either one-day or stage races. It has rules for uphill, downhill, and flat terrains, and different types of riders (the usual sprinter, rouleur, climber, and GC riders). The movement of the cyclists is controlled by dice, but the game has an energy-keeping system (also quite usual: moving less than the rolled number or placing your rider just behind another gives an energy token; spending these energy tokens -up to four per turn- allows you to advance extra squares). There are four different dice: a modified D6 for each type of terrain and a D20 for the (also usual) race incidents.

 

 

The dice are not available for download (downloadable dice are not any good anyway), so you will have to modify your D6 with stickers. What is downloadable, though, is the game board. You will have to print in a professional copy shop if you want to play with big riders, but you could probably test the game with something smaller.

 

The different terrains are downloaded separately and superimposed on the board, as you can see in the picture above. You also see the modified dice, and rider cards that you can download but the use of which I cannot find in the presently published rules.

You can also download one of the available race profiles (which represent actual races) or make your own, keeping in mind that one square is supposed to represent 3 km, that red tiles represent climbs with an average gradient over 9%, or climbs longer than 5 km AND with an average gradient of 6%, and that yellow tiles represent easier climbs. Green tiles represent downhill sections.

As said above, this game can represent one-day races (estimated playing time according to the game's website: 45 minutes) or stage races. To be able to play the latter, a simple time-keeping rule is provided, as well as a time trial rule which, as the rules of the game themselves confess, is not strategically interesting, since the game is about the interaction between riders, and is just there for the sake of completeness.

At the moment of writing, there are 13 real race simulations available, 8 of which are one-day races (including the 5 monuments!). The 5 stage races are of course the Tour, Giro, and Vuelta (2024 editions), but also the Volta a Catalunya, which makes me really happy. The fifth race, by the way, is the recently presented 2025 Tour de France. This is fast!

 

I attended this stage at Montjuic!

 

In the end, this Grand Plateau is a nice attempt to make an all-encompassing cycling game. Its rules are hardly the most original, and the game will not make cycling board games' history, but it is not a bad game, one that I will probably enjoy playing if I am lucky enough to catch it at a games event, and one that could perfectly be published in a commercial boxed version. I have seen worse games published, but of course there are many cycling games, even many recent cycling games, and the potential market is not that big. So, since we do not know if Grand Plateau will ever be commercially released, if I were you, I would download the print-and-play version while it is available.

By the way, the rules are only in French, but this should not be a problem in these days of online translators, and there are plenty of video tutorials of this game available.

Download the game from its official website