This real-world Cowboy game lets you race against other e-bike rider

Belgian e-bike company Cowboy has jumped into the social gaming category and launched a new game called "Race" that people can play while riding an e-bike. The first-of-its-kind racing game puts riders against other people and they are made to compete in a 500m sprint.

Initially, the riders are paired with people who have similar stats. But as the game levels up, the races get more challenging and the next rider will be "just a bit faster." Talking about the new game in a blog post, Cowboy said:

It represents Cowboy's first foray into social gaming, further enhancing the riding experience and community connectedness for Cowboy riders worldwide. The game sees riders with similar profiles compete against each other in a 500m sprint to progress through increasingly challenging levels and climb to the top of the leaderboard.

In addition to Race, the e-bike company has launched two other games as part of its In-Ride Games. One is called "Burn" where riders can take part in a one-minute challenge to quickly burn some calories. Its Level 1 starts with four calories and pushes the rider to burn 23 calories in Level 20.

The other game called "Push" is designed to test the rider's strength and endurance. Comprising 25 levels, the rider has to maintain pedal power above a threshold for 15 seconds to progress to the next level.

One thing to note is these games are designed with rider safety in mind. Riders can choose between the games once they are in a safe cycling environment like a park. The gameplay minimizes distractions and automatically pauses when the riders stop, they can turn off the games with one touch.

Cowboy's co-founder and CTO Tanguy Goretti said that the Cowboy community has collectively driven 150 million kilometers and the company has previously launched industry-leading features such as Crash Detection and Traffic Alerts.

"Today is another first: Connecting our riders through a fun and exciting interactive Race game. We're incredibly excited about this first step into social gaming and the potential that it brings to Cowboy's riders," Goretti added.

These games are part of the latest update for Cowboy's Connect app, which comes with a new rider dashboard and theft alerts for all riders. These games are also available to all riders on Android and iOS.