Frequently asked questions

A cozy cycling adventure set in 1960s Tuscany. You ride and walk through an open world of hill towns, villages, harbours and chalk roads, help the townsfolk with their errands (commissioni), buy better bikes in the officina and ride the giri – on a smart trainer or with touch controls.

A game first. You can ride it as a workout – there are fixed routes with personal records, a village race, a hill climb, duels and guided workouts – but nothing forces you to. Ordinary errands have no timer, and there is no leaderboard.

Android phones and tablets. Tuscany Ride is a 3D game, so a reasonably recent device gives the smoothest ride. The graphics are tuned for mobile devices.

Pricing has not been announced yet. It will be shown here and on Google Play before release.

The game is in alpha and is being prepared for Google Play. News will appear on this website.

24: English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Hungarian, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, Swahili, Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Hindi and Arabic. Italian words like “commissioni” and “officina” and the place names stay Italian in every language.

No. Without a trainer the game runs in demo mode: you pedal, brake and steer with the touch controls on the screen. Everything in the game can be reached this way.

Trainers that connect over Bluetooth and speak the open FTMS standard (Fitness Machine Service). Most current smart trainers support it. The game reads your power and cadence and sends the road's gradient back, so the hills feel like hills.

Many smart trainers only have the one gear your bike is in on the trainer. Tuscany Ride adds a virtual cassette of 24 gears on top. Switch it on in the menu under Trainer → Virtual shifting, then shift in one of three ways:

1. Touchscreen

While virtual shifting is on, a − button (easier) and a + button (harder) appear on the screen. Tap them while you ride.

2. Wireless game controller

Connect the controller to your phone or tablet in Android's Bluetooth settings. Then shift with the shoulder buttons: LB easier, RB harder.

3. Zwift Click v2

Connect the Click in the game: menu → Trainer → Search for devices, then Connect next to the shifter. The right puck’s + shifts harder, the left puck’s − easier. The other buttons work like the controller buttons with the same names (the left puck’s pad like the d-pad, A, B and Y as they are, Z like X).

Limitation: the Click’s left puck (− and the pad) only sends its buttons if the Click has been connected in the Zwift app within roughly the last 24 hours – this is how the Click itself works. If it is silent, Tuscany Ride tells you. Then: connect the Click once in the Zwift app (not Zwift Companion; the very first time, confirm with OK and go through its set-up), close Zwift, and connect the Click in Tuscany Ride again. Once a day is usually enough. The right puck (+) always works. The first-generation Zwift Click is not supported yet.

How it feels

Each time you get on the bike you start in gear 15, which feels exactly like riding without virtual shifting. Gear 1 needs about a fifth of that force, for steep climbs; gear 24 about two and a half times as much, for flat roads and descents. Your current gear is shown on the screen while you ride. If your trainer has a real cassette, you can also shift your bike’s own gears and leave virtual shifting off.

Zwift and Zwift Click are trademarks of Zwift, Inc. Tuscany Ride is an independent game and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Zwift.

Yes, any Bluetooth heart rate strap that uses the standard heart rate profile. Your heart rate is shown while you ride and written into your ride files. It stays on your device.

Every ride is saved as a standard .fit file in the folder Documents/TuscanyRide on your device; the Trainer tab tells you where to find it in your Files app. You can import these files into the training platform of your choice yourself. The game never uploads anything.

Yes. Connect a wireless game controller to your phone or tablet and use it for riding, walking and the menus. Without one you play with the touch controls on the screen.

To find and connect your smart trainer, heart rate strap and Zwift Click. If you decline, the game still works in demo mode.

On Android 11 and older, the system only lets an app search for Bluetooth devices if it has location permission. Tuscany Ride never uses it to find out where you are. From Android 12 on, the app does not ask for it at all.

No. The game runs offline, needs no account, shows no ads and has no analytics or tracking. Your progress, settings, rides and photos stay on your device. The only feature that goes online is the optional internet radio, and only while you use it. The details are in the privacy policy.

Instead of the game's own music you can listen to an internet radio station. You search for stations in the free, open directory radio-browser.info, or enter a station's address yourself. The game ships no stations; it only plays the one you choose. While you search or listen, your device connects to the directory and to the station, like any radio app.

Uninstalling the app removes your progress and settings. Ride files (Documents/TuscanyRide) and photos (Pictures/TuscanyRide) are your own files and stay until you delete them in your Files app. “New Game” in the menu starts your progress over. We hold no data about you that we could delete.