VIRTUAL REALITY Defending two jerseys put Ineos onto the front foot. On stage 13 in the Massif Central mountains, Roglic finished just behind Bernal, losing only a fistful of bonus seconds but gaining time on everyone else. Stage 14 – again a split and Ro

With doubts swirling through the summer over the fate of the real 2020 Tour de France, Cycling Plus art editor and avowed gamer Rob Moxon took matters into his hands with his own tilt at yellow – from his living room...

In July there was a hole in my life where the Tour de France should have been. And it was then that I decided to cast off my usual role of armchair fan in favour of the more handson job of Director Sportif/Road Captain in PlayStation 4’s TourdeFrance 2020 game. Forget Zwift – this is where I get my pixel fix.

I’d be leading the charge with Team Jumbo-Visma. There was a brief flirtation with the idea of getting, at long last, a Frenchman like Thibaut Pinot onto the top spot of its home race, but I’d still be sat here in 2021 making that particular pipe dream happen. At the other end of the spectrum, Team Ineos; with its embarrassment of riches in the three-pronged attack of Egan Bernal, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, it seemed like too much of an easy option. In gaming parlance, they were the overwhelming end of game boss. A compromise was a bid to get one of JumboVisma’s general classification (GC) hopefuls Primož Roglic or Tom Dumoulin into yellow, while taking control of hot-shot sprinter Dylan Groenewegen for the flat stages.

The Nice Grand Départ went off without note, aside from a post-stage telling off for Groenewegen going AWOL. Stage 2 was a classic ‘you can’t win the Tour today but you sure could lose it’, where having kept Roglic out of trouble I had him make a punt for glory over the top of the final climb, only to be caught on the line. Fourth place, no time gained on my rivals, or bonus seconds added. It would be my Tour in microcosm: short bouts of tactical savvy eclipsed by utter ineptitude.

Stage 4 – another GC battle lost. Caught napping at the rear of the peloton, Roglic found himself on the wrong side of a split on the final climb before the big category climb to the finish. I clawed him back up to the leading group, burning plenty matches on the way and got there just in time to see Bernal’s blistering attack, which put almost two minutes into Roglic on the line. Could I turn humiliating defeat into a comeback?

In the meantime, Groenewegen redeemed himself with four sprint wins through the whole race, but we weren’t here for such trivial prizes – only yellow in Paris would matter. I’d have to wait until stage 8 for a shot at GC retribution. Having set the team to work early on the front, I shed teammates all the way up to the race’s first hors categorie climb (the toughest of the race), the Port de Bales, and Roglic again chanced his arm over the top with a gung-ho attack (you’d think I’d learn), holding the lead through the descent and over the final climb, Col de Peyresourde, into the finish in Loudenville. The stage win and one minute, three seconds gained on Bernal was enough to put him into yellow – and Groenewegen into green – heading into a much-needed first rest day (for the fingers).

Optimus Primo ?

with only a touch of help occasionally from me, the puppet master, Dumoulin had managed to ghost into joint third position. If I held onto his position through stage 18 we might just have two riders on the podium in Paris.

That’s discounting tactical blunders, which were overdue. I instructed Steven Kruijswijk to protect Dumoulin, so I could focus on keeping the main man Roglic where he needed to be. Getting carried away with the fun descent, I took my eye off the Dumoulin ball and before I could notice, he’d shipped six minutes on the GC group. Despite sending the entire team, bar George Bennett, back to help he was cooked.

Another tactical horror show ensued on stage 20’s mountain time trial. I should have known something was up when Roglic caught his minute-man Bernal before the first time check. Yet, despite more time being thrown away, we carried yellow into Paris.

In a nerve-shredding affair, we'd clung on by the skin of our teeth. I'll gladly hand back control of team tactics to the professionals this autumn...