Bicycle — Follow the leader, Slowly

• Follow-the-leader — One person is the leader, they get to choose the "course" and challenges, on-the-fly, as the game progresses. The other person (the follower) has to try to mimic what the leader does, and the leader tries to best the follower by doing things that the follower is unable to do.
• Trials — The ultimate rule is to never put your foot down.
• "Trackstand lite" — The main part of the game is played while going very slow. The game is fast enough (~2mph) that players don't need to be able to do actual trackstands. However, in the course of playing the game, they'll get a lot of practice in being able to balance while going very slow. (thus, it's helpful practice to be able to do a variety of balancing tricks — trackstands, )
• Soaring — It's not just pedaling that's discouraged, braking is discouraged too. The goal is to preserve energy. By doing this, the rider becomes much more aware of minute altitude changes, and kinetic⇔potential energy exchanges. (eg. trading altitude for speed, as with airplane flying)

• The follower should stay "near" the leader. (not more than 2 bikelengths ahead or 10 bikelengths behind) Getting too far behind or too far ahead results in the leader scoring. (the follower may be required to pedal once or twice to catch up, so this doesn't have to be a separate rule)
• Either person "scores" whenever the other person:
  • puts their foot down
  • has to pedal more times than the other person (each person counts the number of times they have to pedal, and when these counts differ, the person with the fewer pedals scores)
• When doing the actual competition, the two people move very slowly. To allow for traversing longer distances during the middle of a game (eg. so the leader can move from one obstacle to another, as well as to allow the game to be played while the two are en route to an actual destination), the game can be in one of two states. The states change whenever the leader decides to, and the leader must call out the state change, so the follower knows whether they can pedal or not.
  • SLOW — Competition ensues. The extra-pedals and stay-close rules are now in effect again.
  • FAST — Competition is suspended, ie both people can pedal as much as they want, and they don't have to stay close by each other, or match each other's speed. HOWEVER, putting your foot down still results in a score. (ie at stop lights, you have to either rest against a pole, or go in circles)

    The leader doesn't necessarily have to call this state, since it's usually obvious by the fact that they're going >10mph and pedaling rapidly on flat ground.

  • Right after transitioning from FAST⇒SLOW, there are a few extra rules in effect. They stop being in effect once the two match speeds and are going <5mph.
    • The two people may be going different speeds at first, since they're definitely allowed/encouraged to do this during FAST. The two should try to match speeds as quickly as possible.
      • If the leader is going faster than the follower, then no points can be scored [for getting too far away] until the two match speeds. The leader is encouraged to slow down to let the follower catch up. (this is to prevent the leader from exploiting the fact that they get to choose when to go from FAST⇒SLOW, and thus could decide to do that only when the leader is going much faster, which would essentially make FAST almost as competitive as SLOW)
      • If the follower is going faster than the leader, the follower just applies their brakes enough to match leader's speed.
    • Slowing down:
      It's acceptable if the leader slowly coasts down from high speed to low speed.
      It's also acceptable if the leader brakes hard to quickly get down to <5mph. (if so, follower is of course required to brake to match leader's speed)
      However, once they get to a low speed, the leader should try to avoid using the brakes whenever possible.
  • The leader shouldn't try to exploit their ability to rapidly switch from SLOW to FAST and back to SLOW. That is, they could try to use this to get a quick pedal in, during the short amount of time that FAST is in effect, while follower may not be able to get a pedal in within the short time that FAST is in effect (reaction time). To prevent the leader from exploiting this, the follower is allowed to pedal as much as they want for 5 seconds after a SLOW⇒FAST transition.
• Handlebar pedaling
  "Handlebar pedaling" is prohibited. For the purposes of enforcement, "handlebar pedaling" is defined as rapidly switching the direction of the handlebars consecutively four times or more. (eg. left,right,left,right is enough to be penalized) Enforcement should be lax, since when doing trackstands, riders frequently move their handlebars rapidly. "Handlebar pedaling" is typified by more extreme and more constant-frequency movements.

Simplified ruleset

• There are two "faults" that allow the other person to score: 1) putting your foot down, and 2) pedaling more times than the other person.
• The follower must stay close to the leader (no points awarded for this — if the follower has to pedal to catch up, that's the penalty) [TODO: what about if the follower is able to outpace the leader by more judicious pedaling?]
• The leader can temporarily suspend competition to allow the pair to travel some distance. When the leader calls "FAST", all rules are suspended. The leader calls "SLOW" to indicate that the rules are resumed.
• (minor) The leader isn't allowed to exploit the fact that they decide exactly when to switch SLOW⇔FAST. In particular, if they quickly go SLOW⇒FAST⇒SLOW, then follower is allowed to pedal as much as they want for 5 seconds.

Very simplified ruleset

• Follow the leader, don't get ahead of them.
• Don't put your foot down.
• Don't pedal more times than the other person. (where "one pedal" means one full revolution)
• If the leader says "FAST", all rules are suspended, and you can bike as fast as you want. If the leader says "SLOW", then the rules are resumed.