It’s hard for me to believe that I wrote my initial review of Flamme Rouge (the cycling game) back in 2017. That’s right – eight years ago. (For those of you who can’t be bothered to follow the link, I was very positive about the game… and completely unable to pronounce the name correctly.)

In the intervening near-decade, there have been three official expansions for the game: Peloton (which added two more teams), Meteo (which added weather effects), and finally, the much-delayed Grand Tour (which added a really solid way to link races together into a meaningful campaign.)

Over the next few paragraphs (plus a few pictures), I’ll give you a brief review of each of the expansions – and follow that up with some thoughts on enjoying Flamme Rouge as a solo game experience.

Let’s race!

Flamme Rouge: Peloton

The first Flamme Rouge expansion was released in late 2017 and added a number of elements to the game system. With the addition of the pink & white teams, the game is now playable with up to six players. There were two new track elements added: Cobblestones and Supply Zones. (Cobblestone tracks are narrower and riders cannot slipstream on them; Supply Zones are wider sections of track with a minimum speed of 4 – much like downhill track sections from the original game.)

The rules also included a Breakaway variant – recommended when playing with 5-6 teams – that has a pre-race bid for poll position. This is probably the most difficult of the new rules to communicate to players, as the bidding process feels “off” thematically. (The new track cards in the expansion have version for 2-4 players without the breakaway or 5-6 players with the breakaway.)

Finally, there are rules for “dummy teams” (automa) and playing with 7 to 12 players. The “dummy teams” come in two flavors (Peloton team and Muscle team) and make it possible to play solo or to add them to a multi-player game.

I love the additional elements in this expansion – especially the chance to play with six players. My experiences with the solo mode was, well, ok. (We’ll get to my much more positive solo experience as we review Grand Tour.)

Flamme Rouge: Meteo

The second expansion for Flamme Rouge was Meteo. Released in late 2018, it was a bit of a disappointment when released as it simply consisted of four weather standees and the cardboard chips to generate those weather effects. No new track, no new riders… just ways to vary up the race.

Over time, I’ve come to appreciate the utility of this small expansion. For players with a game or two under their belt, it provides an extra element to as consider as they race for victory. However, I feel like it’s most effective when combined with…

Flamme Rouge: Grand Tour

The Grand Tour expansion just appeared at Essen 2024 – and has finally made it’s way to the U.S. and to my gaming table.

This is a meaty expansion whose primary purpose is to finally codify a way to do multi-stage campaigns (aka “hold your own Tour de France”) but also adds in specialist riders and some new track elements.

Module: New Track Tiles

I’ll start with the three new track elements. The Wide Finish simply makes more room just past the finish line and is suggested for use with Peloton and with the race layouts in the Grand Tour expansion.

The other two elements (the Sharp Corner and the two Roundabouts) are both familiar sights for those who watch coverage of the Tour de France. The Sharp Corner has three single lane “wet” spaces that can potentially cause crashes while the Roundabouts have a longer and shorter pathway around the central hubs. Both elements help create tracks that look and feel more “real world” and offer interesting tactical decisions to the players.

Module: Specialist Riders

The Specialist Riders module adds twelve different customized riders that are available to be drafted – primarily for multi-race campaigns, but they can also be used in single race play. There are two of each Rider provided (for 4-6 player games); when playing with 2-3 players, only one copy of each Rider should be used.

The rider cards replace some number of base deck cards (it depends on the specialist) that gives each rider some “powers” they can use:

• Strong Ascents: cards that increase the speed cap of climbing uphill sections of the course
• Strong Descents: cards that increase the speed bump of coasting downhill
• Recovery: allows the player to remove 1 exhaustion card from their deck
• Relentless: regardless of final position of the turn, the rider doesn’t get an exhaustion card
• Breakaway: does not allow slipstreaming from their space at the end of this turn
• Chase: gives an extra boost to catch the rider in front of them
• Nimble: allows the rider to take the rightmost position on a space – or even ride on the edge of a space if it is full

In a campaign, riders do not draft new powers for each race – they are who they are for the duration of the Tour.

Playing A Tour

Speaking of tours, the largest part of the rulebook is devoted to explaining the process for creating and playing a three to twenty-one (21!) race campaign in Flamme Rouge. In addition to two different pads of tracking sheets, the expansion includes time tokens, award tokens, nifty little slotted cardboard “jerseys” to indicate the leaders in each area, 21 new race layouts, a finish area for scoring the race, and colored bags for each team to keep their cards in.

It’s no surprise that there’s a bit of bookkeeping involved to pull this off. Each team has an individual score sheet used to track finishing times, podium finishes, sprint points, and mountain points by race stage.

Additionally, there is a tour score sheet where all of that information is compiled. Thankfully, the rulebook does a splendid job of showing you how to use the tour sheet (or sheets, if you’re doing a longer tour) to keep track of all the elements. (Take a gander at the graphic below to see what I’m referring to.)

There are three different types of tour stages (races):

• “Normal” stages – courses very similar to the designs in the base game and Peloton
• Time Trial stages – races are simply done for time and do not involve any slipstreaming (in an actual time trial race, cyclists are released at intervals and don’t strictly “race” each other)
  • Note: according to Asger (the designer) on BGG, lane order is used at the end of the time trial to break ties. (The rule was inadvertently left out of the rulebook.)
• Extended stages – longer races with a Supply area in the middle and the use of the Refresh token (part of the Grand Tour expansion)
  • When a player claims the Refresh token (by being the first & furthest to pass it), there is a Refresh phase for all players. Each rider can shuffle 24 points of cards from their discard pile into their draw pile. Recycled cards (face up on the bottom of the rider deck) are flipped face down and shuffled in as well.
  • The player who claimed the Refresh token gets +1 point worth of cards returned.
  • If you’re curious, the picture at the top of this section shows an extended race stage.

Each stage card shows you the layout of the track as well as the places for the appropriate stacks of mountain point and sprint point tokens to be placed. The stage cards provided in the Grand Tour expansion assume you have both the base game and the Peloton expansion. (They are also double-sided with a 2-4 team layout on one side and 5-6 team layout on the other side.)

At the end of each stage (race), the riders get rid of half of their exhaustion cards (rounded down), meaning that a rider who has led the pack for the majority of a stage will be struggling to keep up in the next stage. Additionally, points are awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place as well as assigning the correct mountain and sprint points to those players.

With longer tours, you also have the option of inserting rest days into the mix. (There’s a picture of the rest day card above.)

Soloing Flamme Rouge

The original solo mode (from Peloton) worked but wasn’t particularly interesting to play against. The addition of creating “tours” plus the specialist riders (giving each team some personality) in the Grand Tour expansion went a long way to creating a much more enjoyable solo experience.

What made it really work (as a solo game) is the kindness of strangers. Well, in this case, the kindness (and creativity) of some helpful solo rules ideas from the folks over on BGG. (Kudos to ‘Baroudeur31’ and all the other folks on the thread who’ve contributed. Using their automa suggestions, I’ve finished my first seven stage tour… and I’m gearing up for a full 21-stage Tour de France (by way of Hendersonville, TN) later this year!

Final Thoughts

To close, some simple recommendations:

• If you enjoy the base game, Peloton is a worthy expansion to add variety to your stages and enable you to play with up to six teams. Highly recommended.
• Meteo works well – but isn’t necessary. I’m still glad it’s part of my collection.
• Grand Tour has some elements that can be used in “one-off” games (track pieces, specialist riders) but the real reason for the expansion is creating campaigns/tours. If you’re interested in that aspect of cycling and/or board gaming, I think that the Grand Tour is an incredible and essential expansion.