For Max Riese, performance has never been a simple measure of results. It is a state of mind, shaped by obsession, self-imposed pressure and a refusal to ever feel finished. In 2025 that mindset was aimed at one objective: committing fully to the FURTHER event series. The season also included TRAKA and the Tour Divide, but FURTHER framed the year — three events spread across a season, each demanding consistency and the ability to perform a long way from help.
Why FURTHER
FURTHER is routed by Camille McMillan and tests endurance, navigation and resilience across remote country. There is no prize money and no categories. For Max the appeal is that the series does not ask him to choose between racing hard and going somewhere he has never been.
With FURTHER as the backbone of the season, his preparation followed the familiar annual pattern: structured training, relentless volume, nutrition tracked to the gram, equipment refined endlessly. The goal was never simply to finish the events but to arrive at each one ready to race. “The margins matter,” he says. “An athlete will never be satisfied. It’s a slippery slope — getting lost in the details and forgetting why you ride in the first place.”
Ultra-distance racing is a complicated pursuit. Riders often say they are racing only themselves, and the reality is more nuanced. “Even if there’s no prize to win,” he reflects, “we still want to be the fastest.” That drive for efficiency, control and execution brings an internal pressure driven less by competition than by expectation.
That tension followed him into the racing. TRAKA early in the year offered a sharp, performance-focused test; the Tour Divide provided a longer proving ground. Both shaped his form and his mindset going into the series, and both came with setbacks and reminders of how quickly plans unravel in a well-prepared season.
The three events
The 2025 FURTHER calendar was Perseverance in the Pyrenees, Equinox in eastern England and Elements in Scotland. Max committed to all three, motivated in part by the new partnership between FURTHER and 7mesh.
He describes them less as races and more as “challenging art experiments,” shaped by history, place and constant evolution — routes that ask for something other than speed.
FURTHER I: Perseverance
Perseverance remains one of his favourites. Roughly 500 km across France, Andorra and northern Spain, it is a patchwork of rugged sectors that demand hiking, careful navigation and sustained mental focus. Riders cross remote mountain passes, centuries-old shepherd trails and abandoned mining infrastructure, winding through forgotten villages and historic pilgrimage routes. Each sector carries a story embedded in the landscape.
Despite his affection for the event, Max arrived depleted. “I was empty,” he admits. Fatigue and lingering frustrations crept in, focus wavered, and he finished 3rd — a solid result, but far from the performance he had imagined on a course that rewards precision and persistence in equal measure.
FURTHER II: Equinox
Equinox, across eastern England, is a different problem. Roughly 360 km through fast-rolling countryside, technical gravel paths and occasional woodland sectors, the route pays homage to decades-old clandestine time trials in the region. The course encourages speed and efficiency. In 2025, repeated punctures in freezing fog began to unravel his momentum, and a crash on a downhill corner left him injured and stranded in the dark, forcing a rare and bitter DNF. “The worst feeling you can have as an athlete,” he says, recalling a night spent battling both the weather and his own disappointment.
FURTHER III: Elements
That left Elements as his last chance to complete the series. Held in Scotland in November, it demanded endurance plus the ability to handle unpredictable highland weather and full winter kit. Riders covered roughly 500 km of small Caledonian roads, remote gravel tracks and open moorland.
Max went out hard, pacing himself as close to his endurance limit as he could and distancing the pack before the 100 km mark. Riding alone for most of the rest of the race, the measured high pace worked, giving him enough time to stop for dinner and even breakfast close to the finish without getting caught. “Finally,” he says. He executed the plan exactly as intended and crossed the line first. “This was the moment where everything came together,” he reflects. “The focus, the flow, the execution — this is what all the obsession was for.”
Done, but not finished
Looking back, Max is unsparing. He did not check every box in the series, but he closed the year with a win.
The fire, he says, is still burning.
As winter training starts and 2026 comes into view, the cycle repeats. The numbers, the details, the obsession. He is looking ahead to FURTHER Unceded in Canada.
“I’m done,” he says of the season. “But I’m not finished.”
