You can now pedal around GTA 5 using a real-life smart bike

A lot of mods have been released for GTA 5 over the years, but few encourage you to exercise. GT Bike V does just that by enabling you to hook up a smart bike to your PC and pedal around the virtual streets of Los Santos. You can even cycle with friends in a new mode.

GT Bike V’s latest update introduces multiplayer to the GTA 5 mod (thanks, Rock Paper Shotgun). Get your buddies to connect their smart bike or cycling power meter to a PC, and you’ll be able to ride around the game together. You can either casually roam the streets at your leisure, or join a dedicated Ride for a group cycle.

Right now, multiplayer interaction is pretty limited. You can send chat messages and see the list of players riding a course, but outside of that, group cycles are the main way of banding together with your friends. There are currently no missions or competitive races to complete, but the GT Bike V’s team says they plan to implement those features down the line.

The mod’s multiplayer mode doesn’t run using GTA Online. That means you’ll have to boot up the game in story mode and your online account won’t be affected in any way. It also means the NPCs and weather conditions in your game are local, so don’t expect other players to see the same. It’s a little odd, but the mod’s team says it “doesn’t really [much impact] the experience, so don’t worry”.

Jumping into a multiplayer game sounds easy. You just need to boot up the game with the mod installed, log into your Rockstar Social Club account, and select “join multiplayer ride” in the menu. According to the mod’s description, you’ll be automatically loaded into whichever course has the highest number of players, and plonked next to another rider, so you’ll never start alone.

GT Bike V could even replace your regular workout. The mod records your cycling data into a FIT file that can be uploaded into training apps, such as Strava, to track your fitness. There are several courses to complete, each featuring different routes of varying difficulties, so you can create an entire cycling routine. 

Don’t be thinking it’ll give you an easy time of it, though. The mod records the roughness of the ground you cycling across, the incline of the virtual terrain, and even the in-game wind direction, sending all that data to your smart bike so it can accurately reproduce the difficulty of your cycle.

The mod even periodically captures screenshots of the game to make it that little bit more real.

You can download GT Bike V for free. To get it up and running, though, you’ll need to have a PC copy of GTA 5, a smart bike or trainer that meets the compatibility requirements, as well as an ANT+ PC dongle that allows your computer to communicate with the bike.

You can also connect a smart treadmill if you’d rather run around the streets of Los Santos than cycle.

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