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Grand Prix cycling obviously entails a lot more than I was giving the game credit for, if the simulation from Gremlin is to be believed accurate.

The basic idea seems familiar. You attempt to get from A to B on your velocipede before a crowd of sweaty Continentals do likewise. I've seen as much on TV.

But, according to Gremlin, the race organisers have picked the most potholed, bumpy, detritus-strewn roads in the country on which to hold the race. And, far from concentrating on the game, your opponents are quite happy to push, bump and kick you off the road if they can see some advantage in it.

The game kicks off (ahem) with a pretty picture of a man with a moustache in a helicopter and some bouncy-bouncy music. Ignore these - they play no further part in the game.

Then the road appears. You, and the rest of the bikers, line up on the start, a man with a gun shouts Go! and away you pedal.

No joystick waggling, mind you, just pointing in the right direction is required.

First and foremost you have to steer around the holes, cracks, Road Up signs and other cyclists. Once you've got the hang of that, you can turn your attention to your body temperature, which rises alarmingly.

By some amazing stroke of pure luck there are items of food and drink hanging around, and you can gain points and lose embarrassing degrees celsius by hitting them.

Other road-bound things include a Judo Warrior something else I've never seen on the TV coverage of the Tour de France, but it might be true), balls look, I said it might be true), coins, silicon chips and the odd bird.

Some obstacles can be jumped over by the appropriate use of a ramp. This, and other daring acts on your behalf, can also gain you bonus points.

What do points make? Bicycles! Yes, armed with only five bikes at the start, you can get an extra chopper for every 5,000 points. You lose a machine by failing off or being kicked.

Beneath the play area are the usual displays of score and time. There's also a little map showing you where you are, a position meter and a couple of digitised physiognomies which contort as the game goes on.

I haven't been able to establish just what or who these are, but watching them instead of the road is a sure and certain way to enter, a pothole head first.

Just the game if you fancy a yellow jersey, and less messy than juggling with custard.

At first, with flash loading screen and convincing music, I was happy that Gremlin had done it again. Now I'm not so sure. This has the unfortunate air of a poor conversion of a Spectrum game, with block-coloured graphics and unconvincing animation. There are even a few bugs (spot the half a bicycle that never was a monocycle).

All this wouldn't matter more than a point on the score if the thing was fun, but it isn't. It's not bad for five or than ten minutes, but not much more than that.

You move inexorably from left to right, dodging this and picking up that, and aside from the fact that getting to the end reveals a password that might get you a Gremlin Goodies GrabBag there's not a lot more to it than that.

Clear cartoon style Mode 1 graphics make for an appealing game. I'm not sure about the ethics of kicking rivals, but since this action merits 400 points who cares? The racial stereotyping is distinctly unsound.

The high point of the game is the excellent music. There is a sense of challenge, I wanted to see what the next country looked like, and no doubt if I was a cycling enthusiast I would have persevered. I'm not and I didn't. Tour de Force is merely OK. I've played better and paid less.

The loader suffers from one of my least favourite traits. It pauses to play music. If I wanted music I'd buy Rainbird's Music System.

Once the program has been beaten into submission and actually loaded, the result is disappointing. I'm pleased that Gremlin saw the sense in not making it a joystick sense waggler, but the game lacks any sense of thrill.

In competition with a number of budget cycling games this fails to get out of second gear.