Flamme Rouge

There hasn't been a lot of activity here, for which I'm sorry. I am still playing games, but, for various reasons, maybe not as much as I have in the past.  

In the past week I have spent a fair bit of time playing Flamme Rouge. In the past I've written up these games, but they don't generally generate much interest, so I haven't bothered this time. Aside from trying out various tracks (solo, or against Catherine), I did run a four race tour against a couple of bot teams.

One of the new tracks was one I designed, based (of all things) on our morning walk. 

The suburb we have moved to is fairly hilly, so we go up and down a lot on our walk, and I tracked the changes in Flamme Rouge terms. Gradual gradient changes are ignored (which is why although the walk starts and ends at the same place the track profile has the end higher than the start).

The route takes you on a climb through the local park (which actually has loads of mountain bike tracks), then a second climb up a suburban street to the suburb's highest point. There's then a descent to the main street. Between F and e is the shop where we stop for coffee - if you're running this track for 5-6 players you'd put section 9 here, with the supply zone. It does delicious burek. Then it's on to the big ascent. In real life this is a flight of 83 steps; not something you'd attempt as a cyclist. The descent at P is the reverse of the ascent RO, and then it's a relatively easy run home with no significant slopes, although it is mostly a steady descent.

We played this course last week and it was an interesting challenge, with ascents early on and little chance for the sprinters to truly shine.

Maybe it's time to pull out some miniatures now, though.