The story behind this game is quite special. Meilsen Koers is a multiple-race cycling event for riders affiliated with one of the cycling clubs in Melsele (East Flanders), which takes place during the first weekend of September. The inaugural edition was held in 2009 and featured just two races: one for riders under 50 and another for those over that age. Since then, a few races have been added: a women's race, introduced in 2012; a youth race; a "Fristi-run" for even younger children; and there have been editions featuring a race for vintage bicycles. All these races are held on the same day and on the same track. The number of competing clubs has also increased from five clubs in the first edition to thirteen teams in the moment of writing.

A poster has been designed for the race every year; in recent years, this has been the work of Roeland Geys from Ghent. At first, he drew inspiration from vintage cycling race posters dating back to the pre-World War I era. However, he designed the 2025 poster to look like a board game. This was followed, according to his words, by "an overwhelming number of enquiries about where this non-existent board game could be purchased". Roeland, a gaming enthusiast, set to work, and this game was born.

By the way, the 2025 race poster (scroll down to see it) was inspired by this website, of which I am very proud.

 

 

 

 

The race might be an amateur race (I readily admit I had never heard of it until Roeland contacted me), but the game looks quite professionally made: both the box (31.5 x 22.5 x 4 cm) and the board (59.5 x 42 cm) are of good-quality cardboard, while the playing pieces are wooden 24 mm cyclist-shaped figurines. The graphic design is quite good too, as you can see. Even the rules are pleasant to look at. Of course, being a game meant to be sold mainly in Melsele and around, the rules are in Flemish only, but Roeland is willing to provide English or French translations to those who need them.

Since the event is composed of different races, the game has been designed to have four different games, each with its own rules, on the same board. Unlike the actual event, though, the points are added at the end, and the player with more points at the end is the winner of the game. That made me doubt whether I should include the game in the one-day race or maybe in the "short" stage race categories, but since it does not really belong to either, I have listed the game in the I have decided to add it to the non-realistic games category (if only for the classification system?), This is somewhat weird, since the game is also in the "actual races" list, naturally, so it is both in the "unrealistic games" and in the "real races" lists.

Speaking of lists, I am so proud of having been part of this game' creation process or inspiration that I have also added it to my favourite games list.

 

 

 

The game is played with two dice, one regular (black) D6 and a special (white) die marked 112233. As hinted above, the game consists of four different races with different rules that are played either over different parts of the game track or using different elements. The first race is a short roll-and-move race that does not score points for the final classification but determines the order of play of the other races. Players are recommended to swap their seats after this race so they are placed in the correct order for the next three races.

The other stages are (a) a team time trial with three riders per team and some strategic choices to be made; (b) a "sprint" race with one rider per player and again roll-and-move mechanics, but here the race incidents on the board are taken into account; and (c) a final race with two riders per team (three in a 3-player game), no race incidents, and some strategic choices to be made. This last race is worth more points than the rest, so it is the most important in the game.

 

 

Close-up of the riders. Being only one cyclist of each colour (team), this must be the third race.