'Deck de France' is a new free software that can turn your bike trainer into a controller for your Steam Deck

If you've ever felt like your bike trainer has a disturbing lack of Rocket League or Forza Horizon, you are in luck. One app called Deck de France can let you use your bike as a controller for games, though it's pretty limited so far.

Shared on GitHub (via Hackaday), Deck de France is technically compatible with any smart trainer that broadcasts Cycling Power Service over Bluetooth Low Energy. That means it can work with the following devices:

• Tacx — NEO, NEO 2T, Flux, Bushido, Vortex, Satori, Booster
• Elite — Suito-T, Justo, Direto, Drivo, Rampa, Sterzo Smart (steering plate)
• Wahoo — KICKR, KICKR Core (broadcasts CPS — untested but should work)
• Zwift Hub / Zwift Hub One (broadcasts CPS — untested but should work)
• CycleOps — Magnus, H3 (broadcasts CPS — untested but should work)
• Garmin — Vector 3 power meter pedals
• Magene — S3+ Speed/Cadence sensor
• Power meters — Any BLE power meter pedals or crank-based meters (4iiii, Stages, Favero, etc.)

Effectively, the app can translate your pedalling power into actions. Sukolupo, the creator of the app, says the original use case is the Tour de France games. The harder you pedal, the faster you go.

That makes sense as it's the closest video game to actually cycling without actually cycling, which has always been a bit of an oddity to me—especially when cycling apps such as Zwift and Rouvy exist.

Details

It also has some rudimentary functionality in other games. In Rocket League, pedalling activates boost. In the Forza games, pedal power is equivalent to acceleration. You can even control the throttle of cars in Grand Theft Auto.

The catch here is that you need a Bluetooth controller to do everything else. That means in the likes of Rocket League, you'd play as normal on a controller and pedal when you want to boost.

As of right now, it is shown working with the Steam Deck, but Deck de France technically works with any Linux PC. It actually seems strikingly simple to set up, with Sukolupo saying you can get it working in just five minutes. The instructions are all on the Deck de France GitHub repository and easy to follow.

So, if you're an avid cycler, or just want the weirdest way to hog all the boost in Rocket League, this seems like a fun way to add a little bit of exercise into a gaming session.