Show Notes
The 2026 Hellenic Mountain Race is underway. We wasted no time showing riders what they signed up, ascending a 1,200-metre climb straight off the start. Rolling out of Agios Athanasios, riders are quickly dropped into the adventure, surrounded by alpine tundra and snow drifts. In this episode we transport you to the side of this first mountain pass, before catching up with riders resupplying and the first to arrive at CP1.
Colombine Courouble – Cap 33 Andy Lingham – Cap 15 Stephane Ouaja – Cap 156 Femke van Kessel – Cap 55 Albert Schmidt – Cap 04 Remco Van Gestel – Cap 137 Florian Wille – Cap 210A Jara Giraud – Cap 81 Declan O’Leary – Cap 30 Rick Steffen – Cap 141 Benedek Borsos – Cap 22 Max Riese – Cap 120 Abe Kaufman – Cap 01
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Production & hosting by Mel Webb Sound design by Ben Crannell
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More from The Mountain Races Podcast
Day two of the inaugural Taurus Mountain Race, and the field has well and truly spread out. A night of thunderstorms has left riders scraping peanut-butter mud from their tyres. Some slept on mosque verandas, in goat sheds and under concrete shelters. Others found a warm welcome from strangers, including a Syrian refugee family offering tea, dry clothes and a litter of kittens. We catch riders pushing up the hike-a-bike before CP1, chat with others as they head back out from the checkpoint, and follow them through the cedar forests and up onto the yaylas.
The first Taurus Mountain Race gets a baptism of rain, with 100 millimetres forecast for the first 24 hours. In places the track has turned to thick, sticky mud. We hear from riders as they settle into the adventure ahead.
We begin our race coverage in Antalya, where the Taurus Mountains rise straight out of the Mediterranean, for registration day at the inaugural Taurus Mountain Race. Riders trickle in throughout the day outside The Beaver, a coffee shop on the beachfront boardwalk, collecting trackers and race caps while storm clouds gather over the mountains. With the route only revealed 48 hours ago and 100mm of rain in the forecast, the mood is equal parts excitement and nerves. We hear from first-timers and old friends from past Mountain Races, ahead of what will no doubt be an exciting first edition.
Not long now until the start of the inaugural Taurus Mountain Race…
The clock has finally wound down. After more than fourteen days, 2,060 kilometres and 38,000 metres of climbing, the 2026 Silk Road Mountain Race comes to an end on the shores of Issyk-Kul, at the finish line at Hotel Zeto. Riders roll in sun-weathered, filthy and running on empty — five spokes gone and a wheel rebuilt in Bishkek, blistered hands from one last descent of sand and cobbles, a phone broken on day two, a mascot named Beaker who's been everywhere and never had a wash. We greet them as they arrive on the final day of racing.