Cycling in Greece: Road, Gravel, MTB and Brevets

How big is Greece's cycling scene

In Bib2Bib's catalog, cycling (discipline CYCLING) is the single sport with the most 2026 entries: 325 in total. The six main categories are 88 road races (criteriums, time trials, endurance events), 128 MTB, 32 under "Cycling for All" (open gran fondo and hill-climb events), 59 brevets/randonneuring, 5 cyclocross and 2 track — the remaining 11 entries are mostly open, no-licence bike-handling-skill activities.

That figure does not mean 325 distinct events — many appear on the calendar multiple times as separate rounds of the same series (Kos Anagennisis alone has seven separate 2026 dates). The guide below splits the sport into road/gran fondo, gravel, MTB, hill climbs and brevets, and highlights the biggest or most recognisable event in each category.

Road and gran fondo: the "Cycling for All" category

Many of Greece's biggest road races run under the "Cycling for All" (CFA) category — open gran fondo, time-trial and hill-climb events that are part of ΕΟΠ's official competitive calendar but are open to amateur riders, not only licensed athletes. Bib2Bib's catalog lists 32 such entries for 2026.

The biggest one-day gran fondo with an international dimension is Granfondo Greece (Kyvernitis), a UCI qualifier held in Loutraki on 1 November 2026 over a 113.9 km course with 1,360 m of elevation gain. Per the organiser's own event page, entry requires a valid ΕΟΠ licence for 2026, a valid licence from another UCI-affiliated national federation, or alternatively a medical certificate no older than one year, with on-site checks on authenticity.

Gravel: the newest category is growing fast

Gravel is a small but growing slice of the catalog, and its biggest international moment lands on 15 November 2026: "The Gravel of Marathon" in Marathon, Attica is, according to the event's own official site, the first UCI Gravel World Series race ever held in Greece.

Other gravel entries in the catalog include the Megalopolis Gravel Classic (Arcadia, open entry) and the Amarantos Gravel Experience (Karditsa). It is still a small number of races compared with road or MTB, but an official UCI event landing in the country is the clearest sign the category is growing.

Mountain bike: XCC, XCP, XCO, XCM, XCE, enduro (EDR) and DH (DHI)

MTB is the single largest cycling category in the catalog, with 128 entries split across formats: XCC (short cross-country, the most common type in the catalog), XCP (cross-country points, the second most common), XCO (Olympic cross-country), XCM (marathon MTB), XCE (eliminator), EDR (enduro) and DHI (downhill), each with its own duration and technical demands.

One well-documented example of how entry actually works is the MTB BikeExpert Cup 2026: per its own official rules page, the cup runs "official races for athletes with a federation card" alongside "Open cycling activities for children, teenagers and adults without a federation card," with the Open activities available on specific dates within each round and explicitly described as educational/experiential rather than competitive.

Other recognisable series in the catalog include Kos Anagennisis (seven rounds across 2026 on Kos) and the MTB Thassos Cup, part of a weekend alongside the Thassos cycling tour.

Hill climbs: the 17th Anavasi Taygetou

Hill climbs (timed uphill courses) show up on both sides of the catalog's competitive calendar: 9 "ΔΡΜ · Ανάβαση" entries sit inside ΕΟΠ's licensed road-racing programme, against 4 "CFA · HillClimb" entries in the open "Cycling for All" category — so most hill climbs in the catalog actually belong to licensed road racing, not CFA. The most recent and best-documented example is the 17th Anavasi Taygetou, held on Sunday 27 September 2026 in Kalamata. Per a regional sports-media report, the race was organised by the competitive-cycling section of the Kalamata Hikers and Mountaineers Club "O Efklis," the course covered 41 km with 1,280 m of elevation gain, and the event is included in the "Cycling for All" category of the Hellenic Cycling Federation's official competitive calendar, counting toward both individual and club ΕΟΠ rankings.

Bib2Bib's catalog lists other 2026 hill climbs too, including the 12th Anavasi Filis (Attica, 17 October) and the PAOK Chortiatis Climb (Thessaloniki, 4 October, co-organised with the Municipality of Thessaloniki) — both drawn from the same federation calendar, though today's check found no separate confirmation from an open organiser page for either.

Brevets and audax/randonneuring

Brevets are non-competitive, timed endurance rides (audax/randonneuring) at standard distances of 200, 300, 400, 600 and 1,000 km, run on their own separate annual programme published by Brevets Greece — independent of ΕΟΠ's federation racing calendar. Bib2Bib's catalog lists 59 brevet entries for 2026, most heavily concentrated between March and May.

Bib2Bib already has a dedicated, detailed guide covering brevets specifically, with selected 2026 dates and Brevets Greece's own warning that routes can change before any given event; this guide points there for the per-brevet detail rather than repeating it.

ΕΟΠ's role in the calendar

The Hellenic Cycling Federation (ΕΟΠ) publishes the season's official Competitive Calendar/Programme on its own site (hellenic-cycling.gr), covering road, track, MTB, BMX and cyclocross — the base a large share of Bib2Bib's catalog is built on.

Bib2Bib sources most of its road, MTB, gravel, cyclocross, track and gran fondo entries through cyclingcalendar.gr, a calendar that aggregates ΕΟΠ's official listings alongside separate, publicly submitted organiser entries. Internally, Bib2Bib keeps those two categories distinct (federation versus user-submitted), precisely because they do not carry the same level of official standing.

Seasons: when the catalog actually races

Non-brevet catalog entries cluster mainly from February to June (peaking at 59 entries in May) and again from September to November, with a clear dip in July-August due to summer heat and an even sharper drop in December-January (just 2 and 4 entries respectively).

Brevets follow a different pattern: they appear almost year-round, from January through December, with the heaviest concentration between March and May. This is a pattern observed in the 2026 data, not a weather guarantee or a promise that the same dates repeat every year.

Licences: federation card, foreign licence or medical certificate

There is no single licensing rule across every cycling race in Greece — it depends on the organiser and the event. Granfondo Greece (Kyvernitis) requires a valid ΕΟΠ licence for 2026, a licence from a recognised UCI member federation abroad, or alternatively a medical certificate no older than one year, checked on-site for authenticity.

At the MTB BikeExpert Cup, official categories require a federation card, but parallel "Open" activities without a card run on specific dates. By contrast, TihioRace MTB's own participation rules make no mention of a federation card or licence at all — only a minimum age. The takeaway: read the specific race's own announcement before entering, rather than assuming one rule covers "how cycling works in Greece."

How to find and verify a race

Bib2Bib shows every cycling entry with its date, location, discipline/sub-type and, where available, a link to the race's own official page or source, so a reader can check entry terms, the route and any changes directly before registering or travelling.

See every upcoming cycling race, filter by sub-category (road, MTB, gravel, brevet, cyclocross, track) and follow the linked official sources on Bib2Bib's cycling page.