Works of Time

As some of you might know, I make stages for the video game Pro Cycling Manager (PCM) in my spare time. I started doing this a year ago when PCM2010 was released and I had plenty of free time, because of the summer holiday. The prologue of the Tour of Qatar was my first experiment after being disappointed (by the lack of realism) in the vanilla version. After receiving some positive comments I continued my stage making career with the Australian National Championships and the Santos Tour Down Under.

After that I searched for races closer to home (with preferably UCI/ProTour/WorldTour status) and ended up with the Eneco Tour: an eight-day race traversing through the Netherlands and Belgium. It started with a prologue in Steenwijk, continued by two flat stages southwards to Belgium [with the exceptional, and at the time never before seen, feature of an almost 5km long tunnel - representing the Westerscheldetunnel], a cobblestone stage in the Tour of Flanders region, another flat stage eastwards back to the Netherlands, two hilly stages through the Amstel Gold Race and Flèche Wallonne regions and a finishing individual time trial in Genk.

It was and still is the greatest project (in time and effort) I did up until now and this has been noticed by the creators of Pro Cycling Manager. Almost a month ago I was contacted by the project manager for PCM2011 asking me if they could use my files for their upcoming release. Seeing it as the ultimate form of appreciation, I could hardly decline the offer. Therefore the PCM2011 video game comes with my Eneco Tour, and a mention in the credits. I don’t think I have to describe to you how proud I’m of this fact.