Day 15 // I Stink, Therefore I Am
August 4, 2026
Words by Jake Thorpe
Photos by Michael Drummond and Tomás Montes
A Ritual Reward
The trickle of finishers has become a steady stream. For those still on the road, the final approach presents a choice. While some choose to rest through the day, avoiding a roasting on the Finish Parcours to arrive instead in the small hours, others endure the full force of the midday heat, unable to resist the pull of Kalamata. Those rolling in by night are greeted by a skeleton crew of dedicated volunteers and the prospect of a beachside bivvy. Those arriving by day, meanwhile, are welcomed by a balcony of fellow riders gathered above the finish line, eager to trade tales with each new arrival. Yet whichever path they choose, all are ultimately treated to the same reward – a final stamp in their brevet card, a race time measured in days, hours, and minutes – and one last decision: will their finisher’s beer be alcoholic or non-alcoholic?
It’s Not Over Until It’s Over
Arriving in the depths of night, Rémi Mejean (414a) and Marguerite Mulhaus (414b) had chosen the cooler approach. As the fastest pair to Kalamata, however, they were welcomed by a crowd that belied the hour. The pair had one objective for their second TCR together: to have fun. The verdict? Mission accomplished. Being the fastest pair across the line was simply the cherry on the cake.
Back on the fourth parcours, a few days ago, Marguerite had explained how difficult it was not to try and pre-empt the finish. “At some point, you’re tempted to make some calculations and say, yeah, maybe we’ll manage to arrive on a certain day, but really you never know.” A phrase, for the pair, had often resurfaced: “It’s not over until it’s over.”
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It’s no wonder the returning riders felt cautious. Last year, Marguerite’s wheel had decided to disintegrate in Spain, costing them half a day as they searched for a replacement. The memory had clearly bled into their renewed strategy. Making routing decisions that avoided unnecessary risks, even if they were a little more circuitous, and waiting until the finish line to call it job done, rather than tempting fate with any premature celebrations, Rémi and Marguerite had ridden a race of profound common sense. As it happened, their apprehension proved well-founded. Just 80 km from the finish, Marguerite’s gear cable snapped, reducing her to single speed. Yet acting with the same pragmatism with which they’d raced, the pair merely whipped out a replacement, and repaired it there and then, to continue, unhobbled, to the finish
Cruising down into Kalamata, I’ve no doubt the pair were glad to say, “It’s over.” Olives and fresh beer – a prospect that had carried them through the final stretch – awaited, a fitting reward for the pairs category winners.
Pride? Not Yet
For Hélène Fromenty (134), however, the night’s final kilometres were not so much chosen as imposed. Intending to bed down in Ancient Olympia before the final push, Hélène had scoped out a suitable public toilet, and was in the midst of arranging her bivvy when her evening routine was rudely interrupted by the torch of a passing security guard, and she was forced to pack up and move on. Moving on, however, in Hélène’s case, crystallised as an uninterrupted charge towards the finish. She maintains she had intended to stop, had fatigue set in, but by some miracle, “it never really happened, so I just kept going.”
Throughout, Hélène has chosen to savour the riding rather than obsess over the racing, but make no mistake: she left nothing behind. “I honestly could not have been faster or slept less than I did,” she reflected, before adding, “so I’m amazed by the performance of the fastest FLINTA riders.” For Hélène, her time – 14 days, 20 hours, and 4 minutes – marked a goal complete: riding the TCR in less than 15 days. It’s a time she can be very proud of.
But pride, for the French rider, wasn’t the defining finish line feeling. Disbelief, at present, prevails. “The whole way I was thinking: oh, you’re doing this! This thing you’ve been hearing about for so many years. I didn’t really realise I was a part of it, but I think it will probably come in the next couple of days.”
Retail Therapy
Arriving in Kalamata just ahead of Hélène, Nicole van Batenburg (029) admitted that, towards the end, she, too, occasionally forgot that she was taking part in the race. After the close contest with Katharina Wirth (199) through Albania didn’t fall in her favour, come Greece, Nicole had settled back into a steadier rhythm. Stopping in Ancient Olympia, she found herself instinctively browsing a local jewellery shop, until the small matter of the race returned to mind.
Retail therapy had become something of a theme of Nicole’s first TCR. Never one to boast of her organisational skills, the Dutch rider’s occasional absent-mindedness had left behind a breadcrumb trail of personal electronics scattered across the continent – with frequent diversions required to replenish her dwindling supply. Nicole wagered she’d spent €120 on replacement headphones over the course of the race, having left her original pair in an Airbnb, before drowning several subsequent pairs in the relentless perspiration of the Peloponnesian heat.
Of course, Nicole’s most renowned shopping sprees have been well documented: 94 ice-creams in just over 14-and-a-half days – that’s one every three-and-a-half hours. Not bad going when you consider that she also managed a top-50 finish; just imagine her speed had she been permitted the assistance of a soft-serve soigneur. While her investment in frozen treats might be more difficult to recoup, fortunately, Nicole was able to recover one of her early losses. Her headphones, recovered from the Airbnb, are now on their way back to the Netherlands.
Lost and Found
Nicole isn’t the only person to benefit from the road’s informal department of lost-and-found. Markus Carlos Hein (166) had been frustrated, early in the race, to lose a GoPro from his bike. The camera, however, appeared to possess a well-developed homing instinct. Discovered by a budding detective beside the road, its saved footage revealed a trail of clues. First came a café in Trondheim’s town square, identified via AI, which linked the camera to the TCR. Then came a video capturing Markus’ cap number, directing the detective towards his digital dot. The integrated social handle attached to his dot, offered the puzzle’s final piece. The camera, like Nicole’s headphones, now patiently awaits its owner’s return.
I Stink, Therefore I Am
The road’s lost possessions are not the only ones waiting faithfully to be reunited with their riders. Like a loyal hound awaiting its companion’s return, Jon Endres (00b), along with the rest of the Lost Dot crew, welcomed the arrival of his estranged pair, our own roving reporter Andrew Phillips (00a), this afternoon. Bottles clinked; salt-soaked hugs were shared.
Andrew seemed buoyant. He had clearly enjoyed the final stretch, powering through the 574 km from Leskovik in a single, continuous push to finish with an unofficial race time of 14 days, 17 hours, and 55 minutes. “Second place on the outside of GC leaderboard,” Jana Kesenheimer (010) joked, as the time was read out. “Third,” Andrew replied, nodding to Jana’s partner, Christian Holweck, “but I’m sure we can find a DQ for you somewhere.”
The synopsis of his ride had a pleasing symmetry: five good days; five bad days; five good days. But had it been satisfying? “I think I need some time for that,” Andrew admitted, “but I’m pretty happy to have got to the end; it’s quite a big bike ride.” The feeling certainly differed from his last TCR finish line, four years ago. Sitting for his finisher’s portrait, Andrew noted, “for one thing, I don’t think we had a chair – we didn’t have a lot.” But the satisfaction, too, that had come with a top-10 position had possessed a different character – more immediate, perhaps, or simply easier to locate.
“There were more highs and lows this time,” Andrew noticed, “which is funny because I had more sleep and didn’t push as hard. But I think last time I always had that guiding reason of competition – the will to win. It meant that I just pushed on through these emotions without asking why.” Asking why, of course, had been the very purpose of this year’s attempt. Yet the answer, for Andrew, had often felt elusive. In the tougher moments, why had become the most painful question.
Sitting on the cutting-edge finish-line furniture, with brevet card stamped and beer in hand, Andrew revealed the fruits of his inquiry. “I reckon it might be as simple as this,” he began, as we held our breath. “I stink, therefore I am.”
His conclusions aren’t as farcical as they first seem. He elaborated, “You have to ride hour by hour and day by day. If you take your eye off the day, and put it on the finish line, that way, madness lies. Even earlier, going over that ridgeline, with those incredible views out over the Peloponnesian mountains and thinking about starting in Trondheim just over two weeks ago, half an hour later, I faced a 200 m climb in the baking heat and it was such a slog. So letting my guard down and allowing my mind to wander for just a few minutes with 20 kilometres to go was difficult enough.”
In essence, why is just too vast a question to ask when all you can do is focus firmly on the here and now, your own simple existence on the bike at that moment: I stink, therefore I am. Anything beyond that can wait. Time and perspective will reveal the rest.