Where November Still Feels Like Race Season
UCI Gran Fondo Antalya Brings 963 Riders From 44 Countries to Belek
In much of Europe, November means shorter days, heavier jackets, and bicycles beginning their winter retreat indoors.
In Antalya, the roads were still racing.
From November 5 to 8, 963 cyclists from 44 countries gathered in Belek for the 2026 UCI Gran Fondo World Series Antalya, taking on a 20-kilometer individual time trial before Sunday’s 111-kilometer Gran Fondo and 82-kilometer Medio Fondo.
Just seven days before those road races, Belek had hosted IRONMAN 70.3 Türkiye. One international endurance gathering gave way to another, with The Land of Legends once again at the center of the action.
The sporting calendar had turned to November.
Belek kept moving.
From the Clock to the Roads of Aspendos
Friday belonged to precision.
Riders started individually, each responsible for sustaining an effort over 20 kilometers. Danil Konotop recorded the fastest men’s time in 23:20. In the women’s competition, Martyna Wisniewska finished in 26:45.
By Sunday, the solitary effort had become a race among wheels.
Leaving The Land of Legends, riders faced courses that demanded pacing, positioning, and decisions about when to spend their strength. The longer route offered 714 meters of climbing; the shorter, 348 meters.
Those distances held a challenge across generations. In the men’s 80–84 category, Robert Stones completed the 82-kilometer course in 2:30:57—a result that gave the word “endurance” a meaning beyond a single morning’s effort.
The redesigned route also brought the event through Aspendos, where the landscape offered a different measure of endurance.
Aspendos’s Roman theater dates to the second century CE, its surviving seating tiers and monumental stage building preserving the scale of ancient public life. For a cyclist concentrating on the road, it was a reason to return when seconds no longer mattered. For someone accompanying a rider, it could become an excursion in its own right.
That was part of the weekend’s appeal: the course introduced a place that deserved more time than the race allowed.
A Weekend Beyond the Race
Between Friday’s time trial and Sunday’s road races, Saturday’s program gave the gathering a different rhythm.
The same weekend that saw Robert Stones race into his eighties also made room for children aged two to five on balance bikes. Feet on the ground, a push forward, a little more confidence—here was the beginning of a relationship with cycling that, elsewhere in the field, was still going strong decades later.
Folding-bike events and slow-riding competitions added a playful side to the program, followed by an evening Parade of Nations. In a gathering where seconds could decide a result, there was something appealing about also making a contest of going slowly.
At the Expo, cycling brands, competitors, and visitors shared the event space. Tourists staying in Belek could encounter the gathering without entering a race, while accompanying families had a place within the weekend beyond waiting at the finish.
One of the weekend’s quieter stories unfolded alongside the racing. A COP31 Awareness Ride started with the Gran Fondo on Sunday, bringing cycling’s everyday environmental role into an event normally defined by competition. Youth and Sports Minister Osman Aşkın Bak joined the controlled ride before the short-course competitors continued their race. There was also something designed to remain after the riders had gone. For each of the event’s 963 participants, one tree was donated through Türkiye’s Breath for the Future initiative—963 riders, 963 trees.
Seconds That Made the Difference
Sunday brought Danil Konotop back to the front.
After winning Friday’s time trial, he completed the 111-kilometer Gran Fondo alone in 2:39:16, securing a second victory. Behind him, Andrey Romanov and Damien Degot finished in 2:40:19, taking second and third.
Kristina Ingeborg Erikssen also won solo, recording the fastest women’s time over the long course in 2:50:28. Ekaterina Gurenkova followed in 2:51:38, with Alae Brand third in 2:52:17.
For Gurenkova, it was another close encounter with the top step: she had finished just three seconds behind Martyna Wisniewska in Friday’s time trial.
111K Gran Fondo — Women, Fastest Overall Times
🥇 Kristina Ingeborg Erikssen — 2:50:28
🥈 Ekaterina Gurenkova — 2:51:38
🥉 Alae Brand — 2:52:17
111K Gran Fondo — Men, Fastest Overall Times
🥇 Danil Konotop — 2:39:16
🥈 Andrey Romanov — 2:40:19
🥉 Damien Degot — 2:40:19
20K Time Trial — Women, Overall
🥇 Martyna Wisniewska — 26:45
🥈 Ekaterina Gurenkova — 26:48
🥉 Marina Letaeva — 27:12
20K Time Trial — Men, Overall
🥇 Danil Konotop — 23:20
🥈 Jiří Belfín — 23:52
🥉 Bartlomiej Broda — 23:59
The age-group races carried their own stakes. Over 82 kilometers, Tatiana Panina won the women’s 55–59 category in 2:06:29, while Johan Huyghe topped the men’s 70–74 category in 2:05:44.
For eligible riders, finishing in the top 25 percent of their age group on the designated course also opened a path to the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships. European Championship qualification offered another opportunity, subject to nationality and licensing requirements.
Some riders left Belek with a podium finish. Others left with another starting line to work toward.
Why Belek Stays With You
Cycling weekends are usually remembered in numbers.
Distance. Speed. Elevation. Finishing time.
Places leave different memories—and Belek offered more than one to take home.
Maybe it’s the contrast between a route through ancient Aspendos and a finish back at The Land of Legends, with its unmistakable towers.
Maybe it’s a rider in their seventies completing 82 kilometers during a weekend that also made room for children taking their first turns on two wheels.
Or maybe it’s realizing that a trip built around one person’s sporting ambition can become something everyone traveling with them remembers.
The finish line gave the journey its destination.
Belek gave it a reason to happen again.
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