The best Zwift alternative? A GTA5 mod by Garmin engineers
Move over Zwift. Move further over Rouvy and RGT. There’s a new virtual cycling experience in town and it looks beautiful. User Makinolo on GTA5-Mods dropped a huge mod for the hit game Grand Theft Auto 5 that lets you control the in-game bicycles using an F-EC ANT+ smart trainer: GT Bike V.
This might sound like it’s something basic but fun, like VirZoom, but it’s developed with cycling in mind. It adjusts to the in-game incline, terrain, and wind, and also features bespoke routes to ride. It even includes an on-screen Garmin – this is a cycling project, not just a glorified version of those plastic steering wheels people used to buy for driving games.
Note that we said “Garmin” and not “bike computer.” That’s because this mod was quietly developed by Nestor Matas, a senior software engineer at Garmin. He hasn’t really mentioned that in any documentation so far, but that’s more to do with the fact that this is a separate project: it does include an on-screen Garmin and he is wearing Garmin kit in the demo video, so he’s not exactly trying to obfuscate this fact.
How it works
We won’t get into the technical details. There are some obvious things you need – two of which you probably own, and one of which is free:
- A smart trainer
- A PC copy of Grand Theft Auto 5
- The mod itself
With well over 120 millon copies of GTA5 already sold by August 2019, and a week-long promotion last week that made it free, there’s a chance you already have the software.
It takes some technical chops to get set up, but it’s all laid out clear with everything you need. We’ve included instructions below.
In game, you just hit F5 to spawn a road bike (though discipline can be changed) and equip your character with cycling gear.
You then get three options:
- Ride a route – Select a pre-existing route and ride it. Just like Zwift, it’ll auto-steer your character, so you just need to focus on the Watts.
- Free ride with autodrive – Ride without selecting a route. The game will auto-steer, taking you on random routes across the huge Los Santos map (which includes some serious climbs)
- Full free ride – Use a gamepad or keyboard/mouse to steer and go wherever you choose. You can also do the other Grand Theft Auto stuff, if you’ve ever felt like gunning down a car that passes too close.
The auto-steer is based on GTA5’s highest “good driver” setting, meaning that it’s smart enough to not do dumb things or make bizarre decisions. Note that this is Grand Theft Auto though, so if you find yourself riding on the highway you might also find yourself experiencing being launched into the air by a semi-truck. With GTA5’s awesome physics engine, this could be quite the shock if you’re getting immersed in your ride.
The entire mod has great attention to detail, and is built with cyclists in mind. It even saves a fit file which can be uploaded to Strava, and includes screenshots periodically taken from the activity. It’s the real deal.
Finally, it only works in Story mode, because GTA Online doesn’t support mods. Unfortunately, that means no social features, group rides, or online races.
GTA5 (GT Bike V mod) versus Zwift
It’s a comparison we never expected to make, yet this mod makes the comparison a reality. Where Zwift turns your training into a game, GT Bike V turns your game into training, and both arrive at a similar place.
What the GT Bike V mod does very well is integrate the industry standards for smart training directly into the game, including incline, terrain, and even wind. And one area where it stands above Zwift is that it’s so modifiable – if the on-screen speed doesn’t feel realistic to your effort, you can adjust it, and tweak a whole bunch of other things too.
Another factor is that, well, Zwift isn’t the most exciting software. It’s a small team delivering something truly transformative, but the UI is confusing, the graphics are terrible, and the user’s interaction with the world is minimal. It’s, rightly, designed to be accessible anywhere: it runs on your laptop, iPad, phone, Apple TV, LEOMO Type S, smart toilet, and pretty much anything else that has a processor.
By comparison, GTA5 was developed by thousands of the world’s best engineers, with an almost unlimited budget. It looks incredible, has excellent physics, and the world is intricately designed and really feels like it’s a living and breathing city.
Finally, it’s free. The mod, at least. But Grand Theft Auto 5 is a seven year old game that’s sold more copies than anything else out there. Chances are you’re using a copy as a coaster right now. And it was free for a week on Epic Games last week with a huge marketing campaign. Compared to the $15 a month we’re spending on Zwift, we can’t complain.
On the flip side, everything that makes GTA5 so impressive requires major hardware – less so in 2020 than in 2013, but it’s still not going to run on a Raspberry Pi.
It also takes forever to load. Like, forever. Imagine staring at a loading screen for as long as you can. Now double it. Is it longer than your pre-ride faff? Probably not, to be honest. And it has a better soundtrack than the Zwift loading screens.
It’s also offline-only. For training or fun, that’s probably fine. But it’s a big loss of the social side of Zwift, which feels hugely important right now. The userbase is one of the reasons we choose to ride Zwift over its competitors, and it shouldn’t be underestimated. On the other hand, there are no losers arguing, flirting, and making dad jokes while you’re trying to ride (actually that’s kind of a shame since you can shoot people in this game).
Finally, there are no cool bikes or kits. You won’t be riding a Parlee in your GCN kit. There’s a simple pleasure in matching your real life and Zwift bikes.
So is GT Bike V a true Zwift killer? Well, probably not. Not in the sense that we’ll be seeing a mass exodus of Zwift users. But it’s very well executed, built for cyclists, and a whole lot of fun. It’s definitely a whole new option for indoor riding, and one that’s very, very attractive.
Where to get it and how to use it
Download GT Bike V 1.0 mod for Grand Theft Auto V.
Description:
GTBikeV is a mod for GTA V that turns a Smart Bike Trainer, or turbo trainer, into the game controller, making your game time actual training time.
You’ll have a cycling workout inmersed in the GTA V world environment.
The mod features a library that listens to the ANT+ wireless protocol signal from an ANT+ FE-C compatible trainer (Tacx, Wahoo, Elite, Bkool, Kinetic, Saris, etc…) reads the speed and applies it to the vehicle your character is riding during the game. It reads the incline of the terrain, the roughness (material) and the wind in the game and sends all that information to the smart trainer so it can reproduce the hardness of the terrain you are actually riding.
There is an option to record your training into a FIT file, accompanied with periodic screenshots, that you can later upload to Strava or your favorite training app to track your progress. The FIT file is complete with fake GPS location to make your virtual training more realistic.
The mod by default spans a road bicycle and dresses your character with biking clothes.
As you won’t be able to use your keyboard while riding the real bike, the mod features a course reader which auto drives you around Los Santos following different routes of various difficulty levels. If auto drive is selected but no course is loaded, the character will roam freely around the map (be warned, that could lead you to some serious uphills). Auto driving uses the best driving skill level available in the game so you are not likely to hit anything, but you still can be ran over when driving in the freeways with heavy traffic. The mod will try to recover from that without needing you to use the keyboard.
If auto drive is not enabled, the vehicle can be controlled with the usual steering keys or with the alternate smooth steering keys that allow for finer control when riding the bike (but widens the turn radius as well)
Some settings can be controlled from an ini file, including the bike model spawn on start, the scale of the slopes (the game present unrealistic slopes way harder than the real life equivalents), and the real world GPS coordinates of 0,0 in Los Santos map that are used to map the location for the FIT file.
Warning: this mod requires actual PHYSICAL EXCERSISE to be meaningful.
Remember mods only work in Story Mode, not in GTA V online
Requirements:
Hardware:
- Smart trainer ANT+ FE-C compatible
- A bicycle compatible with your smart trainer
- ANT+ dongle for your PC to communicate with the trainer
Software:
- Most recent version of GTA V. This mod gets updated as soon as the updated Scripthook is available.
- Alexander Blade’s ScripthookV
- ScripHooktVDotnet V3.0.x
- My ANT+ FE-C communication DLL (included in the package)
- Guad’s NativeUI V1.7 (included in the package)
- Newtonsoft json encoder/decoder DLL (included in the package)
You may also need:
Installation instructions:
Copy ScripthookV.dll, ScriptHookVDotNet.dll and FE-C_Receiver_DLL.dll in the GTA V installation directory. If you don’t have a scripts directory, create one and place there GTBikeV.dll, NativeUI.dll and NewtonSoft.Json.dll along with the rest of the contents of the scripts folder contained in the ZIP file.
If you want the routes available you should copy the route files (.json) to the user data directory usually located at My Documents/Rockstar Games/GTA V/ModSettings
First time you execute the mod a new ini file will be created in that same directory.
Usage instructions:
- Open the mod menu using F5 key.
- Select the first option to activate the mod and initialize comunications with the trainer
- Select the second option to toggle autodrive
- Use the third option to select the desired route
The trainer must be switched on before activating the mod in order to be detected.
If you want to contribute with your own routes you can create them following the json scheme you’ll find in the included routes. Ping me on the comments to include them in future releases.
Acknowledgements:
Guad for NativeUI and all the forum posts about driving styles