There are ways to speed this system up. Riding a bicycle (for example) would reduce the Egg's actual hatching time by traveling quickly, raising the step count faster, and completing Egg cycles faster. Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald allow players to use the Mach Bike, which is twice as fast as the Acro Bike. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen gives players a harder time hatching their Eggs due to the Bicycle having the same speed as the Running Shoes. Additionally, in Pokémon Emerald and onwards, if any Pokémon with Flame Body or Magma Armor is anywhere in a player's party, it doubles the Egg cycle count reduction, effectively halving the steps needed to hatch the Egg. In the Gligar example, the Egg would start at 21, and with Slugma in the party, the Egg would drop 2 Egg cycle counts after each Egg cycle, from 21 to 19 to 17 and so on. This feature became standard in Generation IV. Also, if the player finds a sandy slope the players can hold the "up" button therefore trying to go up. The player will fail unless he or she is not on the bicycle's faster speed, counting as one step. If the player somehow holds this button down for an extended period of time, the Egg would eventually hatch. The final way to speed up Egg hatching is to use the Pokétch step counter in Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum to attempt to pick up an Egg from the Day-Care Man one step after an Egg cycle completes. This will cut 254 steps off the hatching process (this particular Egg count reduction may not be affected by the Flame Body/Magma Armor Ability, and may only ever reduce the Egg cycle count by one). In the Gligar example, if the player had the Gligar Egg and biked for exactly 255 steps after receiving the Egg, the Egg would reduce one Egg cycle count (down to 20), and the Egg cycle step counter would reset. If the player could then reach the Day-Care Man with only one step, the Egg cycle step counter would read one step taken. Then, the player could receive an Egg from the Day-Care Man, and the Egg cycle step counter would be forced back to zero, and the Egg cycle would reduce again for the first Gligar Egg, reducing the Egg cycle count for the Gligar to 19 in only 256 steps, cutting out 254 steps otherwise.
