The Cycles: International Grand Prix Racing
Released: 1989
Published by: Accolade
Developed by: Distinctive Software
Author(s): Brad Gour, Don Mattrick, Mike S. Smith, John Boechler, Tony Lee, Bruce Dawson, Joey Della-Savia, Kris Hatlelid
Introduction
The Cycles was a sports motorbike racing game introduced in 1989. It followed Accolade's earlier title from 1988, Grand Prix Circuit. Choose from three classes of bike (125cc, 250cc or 500cc) and then compete against 9 computer-controlled rivals in eight races. The 125cc is a great beginners bike with a top speed of 130 mph. The 250cc is the middle ground to hone your skills with a top speed of 145 mph. Once you've mastered things, go for the 500cc which maxes out at 165 mph.
You can choose to practice, enter a single race, or go for the full grand prix. The tracks roughly resemble those of the international racing circuits: Japan, Australia, USA, Spain, Italy, France, England and Sweden. A later version of the game added 7 more tracks: Western Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Holland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Brazil. The USA and Brazil tracks do not host 125cc bikes in the Grand Prix but you can still practice or do a single race on a 125 on them.
At the time of its release, The Cycles was the only motorcycle racing game where your view was from behind the handlebars, adding to the sense of racing. It's not, however, a racing simulator. Like Grand Prix Circuit, with which it shares the same game engine underpinnings, it's very much an arcade racer. The Cycles did get some enhancements over Grand Prix Circuit though, with the most obvious one being the implementation of hills. Sadly, they did nothing to enhance the limited audio the game engine offered so you still just had the PC speaker (or Tandy 3-voice for Tandy 1000/2000 computers) when in-game. The intro [which is a separate file] does support FM music.
They did however, retain the option to race at five difficulty levels which adds to the game's replay value immensely. The lower levels give you an automatic gearbox so you can just focus on staying on the track.
The Cycles intro
The Cycles was re-released on budget label The Hit Squad in 1993.
System Requirements
| System Requirements | 8088/8086 CPU, 512 KB of RAM Graphics support: Hercules monochrome, CGA, EGA, Tandy 16 colour Audio support: PC speaker, Tandy 3-voice Peripheral support: Keyboard, Analogue joystick |
|---|---|
| Original Media | Two 5.25" DS/DD (360 KB) floppy diskettes, or one 3.5" DS/DD (720 KB) floppy diskette. |
| Installed Size (MB) | 640 KB |
From where can it be run?
The Cycles can be run from the original floppy disks. There is an installation batch file (INSTALL.BAT) to copy the files to your hard disk, which uses the current drive as the source and copies the files to a new directory, C:\CYCLES.
Copy Protection
The game comes with a codewheel. When you first start the game you will be presented with a question. Line up the outer two wheels (the person's surname and firstname) with the inner wheel (the year), and then look in that statistic's window for the number:
Some versions you can download from the internet are cracked. These skip over this copy protection question.
How to Setup
EIther run the game directly from the floppy disks or after you've run INSTALL.BAT. Then run GPCONFIG.EXE to configure your hardware, then GPC.BAT to run game:
This creates GPC.BAT (yes, it has the same name as Grand Prix Circuit, as do the main EXE files!) with which you can then run the game with the chosen options.
You can alternatively run the game simply using command-line arguments:
<executable file> <colour/mono> <sound>GPCGA (for Hercules monochrome, CGA 4-colour graphics, or Tandy 4-colour graphics)
where:
<executable file> is one of:
GPEGA (for EGA 16-colour graphics)
GPTDY (for Tandy 16-colour graphics)
<colour/mono> is one of:
n - Normal colour graphics
h - Hercules monochrome graphics (only use with GPCGA - if Hercules detected colours are dithered to black & white)
<sound> is one of:
PC - Normal PC speaker
TDY - Tandy sound
ADLIB - Ad Lib sound
Problems
Symptom:
Cause:
Resolution:
Keys
Racing Controls Cursor Left/Right = Steering A = Shift Up (manual gearbox only) B = Show/hide Map box C = Show clipboard with track's high scores (on Track Selection screen only) |
To Quit the Game
Keep pressing the ESC key until you are back on the "Accolade" screen. Hitting ESC once more will bring up an "Exit to DOS? (Y/N)" prompt. Press "Y" to return to the DOS prompt.
Supporting Documents
I don't have an English language version of the game manual. There are other languages and/or manuals for other systems available elsewhere online.
Additional Files, Drivers & Utilities
Sadly The Cycles was not written with user-tweaking in mind. There are no custom tracks or utilities that I am aware of to allow you to extend the game in any way. Despite its predecessor, Grand Prix Circuit, using pretty much the same game engine, tracks are not interchangeable.
Save Games
You can only save your game when in a Championship. At the end of each race when you are presented with the Circuit Standings table, press F1 to Load or F2 to Save to any one of ten save game slots. The numbers shown indicate the slots that have been saved to. Just press the number from 0 to 9 and hit <Enter> to confirm.
Save game slots are in 10 separate files, called 0.STM, 1.STM, 2.STM, etc up to 9.STM. The high scores are all stored in a single file called SCORES. The file is not text-readable or editable. You can probably edit .STM files to adjust your name or the number of points you have without corrupting it if you are careful - if doing this, I would recommend using a hex editor to make your changes, and of course backup the file beforehand.
Versions of the game known to exist
| Version | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Sep 1989 | Initial public release. |
Original Floppy Disk Contents
The floppy disks have no specific volume label. Here are each disk's contents:
Disk 1 of 1 (3.5" DS/DD 720 KB floppy):
Directory of A:\ ACCOLADE PES 1,806 15/09/1989 8:13 |
|
Disk 1 of 2 (5.25" DS/DD 360 KB floppy)
Directory of A:\ ACCOLADE PES 1,806 15/09/1989 8:13
|
 |
Disk 2 of 2 (5.25" DS/DD 360 KB floppy)
Directory of A:\ ADLIB DRV 7,884 16/09/1989 3:55
|
 |
Installed Directory Contents
Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory.
Note: some files may have been created after initial installation, e.g. config files or save game files.
Directory of C:\CYCLES ACCOLADE PES 1,806 15/09/1989 8:13 |
|
Screenshots
