RIDE 5 Beginner's Guide: Welcome to the Gran Turismo of Bikes

Our RIDE 5 Beginner's Guide will show you how to get to grips with Milestone's latest racing simulator. Whether you're used to other bike games or you're a newbie to two-wheeled racing, RIDE can take some serious adapting.

RIDE is often dubbed "the Gran Turismo of bikes" and it's easy to see why with its wide array of motorbikes and circuits to choose from. That means that you'll need to take things easier when you're inexperienced in the game.

What can you do to help yourself in RIDE 5, though? Well, we were all new to the series once, so here are all the tips and tricks we have for you when you're starting out!

RIDE 5 Beginner's Guide

When booting RIDE 5 up for the first time, after setting the display options for the game, you'll be asked to set your difficulty. There are four options from Easy to Extreme.

If you're a beginner in RIDE 5, we strongly recommend you start in Easy mode. These are generic difficulty settings and they cover everything from the AI's pace and aggression levels to whether to allow rewinds.

There's no shame in going for Easy or Medium and making the most of the assists that are available to you. You won't make much progress if you're always running wide in braking zones and flying over the handlebars.

You'll be able to put these settings to the test straight away, as you're set loose around a fictional race track to experience the gameplay for the first time. This also includes your first head-to-head encounter.

Practice makes perfect

You can read as many articles and watch as many guides as you like, but there's no substitute for hard work on the track. As we mentioned before, if you're new to RIDE 5, start on either Easy or Medium difficulty mode.

You'll want to be racing against the AI, but you should practice on the track by yourself to start with. Once you master controlling your wheels by yourself, you should then introduce competitors to the mix, not before that though.

We recommend going over the main menu and heading into the "Race" sub-menu. From there, you can go to Time Trial. We usually pick a simple track like Monza or Brands Hatch and a low-powered bike.

To see the performance levels of the bike you're choosing, notice the number highlighted on the left side of the screen. For example, the Suzuki RGV 250 you start out with has 311 for its performance level.

Assist King

Depending on your racing game experience, you'll start to get used to the bike and either turn down or remove assists one by one. You can change the difficulty settings by heading to "Riding Aids" before starting any race.

There are presets for these, but you can alter each one individually depending on what help you need to be competitive against the AI.

Speaking of the AI, what you set them to is up to you. Personally, we prefer to set these higher and have a bike that's easier to ride, but it's down to personal preference.

There are a lot of assists and settings here, so we'll explain them here.

Brakes:

• Auto-brakes: When enabled, this applies the brakes when required to get around corners. Meant only for beginners.
• Joint brakes: When disabled, you'll need to modulate the rear brake when braking. Should only be disabled for experienced riders.
• Brake input modulation: Similar to ABS, disable this only if you're an experienced rider.

Steering:

• Automatic steering: Similar to auto-brakes, this manually steers the bike when activated. Only meant for beginners.
• Cornering input modulation: This helps to prevent steering the bike too much and unsettling the bike.

Acceleration:

• Transmission: Dictates whether the bike is automatically shifting gears or this is done manually.
• Acceleration input modulation: Effectively traction control which helps prevent wheelspin when enabled.
• Automatic throttle: Like auto brakes and steering, this applies the throttle correctly around the lap so you don't have to. We'd only recommend this for newbies.

Other aids:

• Ideal trajectory: This is the racing line and you can choose to have it around the entire lap or just in corners.
• Off-track aid: If you run off the circuit, this will help prevent you falling off your bike.
• Rewind: When used, this helps to erase mistakes by rewinding the race and restarting it from a point of your choosing.
• Game speed reduction: If the action is a little too fast for you, you can lower the speed the game is played at.

Qualifying

One of RIDE 5's new features is the introduction of qualifying into race events. If you don't opt to take part in qualifying and jump straight into the race, you'll be starting at the back of the grid.

While it's fun to go through the pack to take victory, this does limit your potential race time and the level of AI you can compete with.

For example, if you're around the pace of 70% AI, you can beat AI of that difficulty when starting at the front. However, if you start at the back, you will need to turn this down to 60% or 50% to beat 20 riders in a five-lap race.

Review

RIDE 5 is out now. With hundreds of licensed bikes, improved physics, and a deep career mode, it's one of the best bike games in years. Find out more in our full RIDE 5 review.