Race Radio: Ardennes Fever, EF Insights & Tales from Liège

Life in the Peloton, presented by MAAP

Mitch Docker

Fitness, Sports, Wilderness, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Harry and Stu might come from opposite ends of the UK and sport very different hairstyles, but there’s one thing they share a passion for: The Old Lady. Not just any old lady – I’m talking about the fourth monument of the season, Liège–Bastogne–Liège. It’s the oldest of all the monuments, and marks the end of the Classics season – and that’s what this month’s episode of Race Radio is all about: the Ardennes classics. The boys are back with another banger of an episode to get you all hyped up for the Ardennes. These races are usually a bit forgotten about, lost in the shadow of Flanders and Roubaix. But, as always, Harry and Stu’s fan’s-eye perspective is oozing with enthusiasm that’ll get you pumped for these races. Harry’s back from the roadside of Flanders and Roubaix, and Stu’s gearing up to get himself out to Belgium for Liège. That’s what I love about these boys – they’re diehard fans that get out on the roadside and soak in the atmosphere at the races, and their passion is absolutely infectious. Here’s what Harry had to say about this month’s episode of Life In The Peloton’s Race Radio: ‘This episode of LITP’s Race Radio is all about the Ardennes and it’s somewhat of an EF Education-Easypost special, with not one but two guests from the team on the show! First up is punchy young Irish climber Archie Ryan, swiftly followed by the team’s not-so-young and punchy DS (and LITP Communiqué regular) Tom Southam. The two tell us what makes these hilly races great, Tom remembers witnessing a live mugging during a recon ride in Liège while Archie dreams of a Ben & Jerry’s helmet sponsorship. Enjoy!’ My experience with the Ardennes as a rider is limited; in fact, of all the races, I only started Amstel Gold Race once – I was always more of a cobbles man. But, after listening to the boys yarn about these races, I am gee’d up for the Ardennes! I hope you all enjoy this one as much as I do. Cheers, Mitch

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here we go.
0:10.7	Let's take advantage of this.
0:16.2	I'm Mitch Stocker and this is Life and the Peloton's Race Radio.
0:37.5	Over to you. Yeah yeah hello everyone um welcome to life in the peloton's race radio i'm harry and this is this is stew yeah hi hello um as stew i've been i've been to the races stew i've been to fl We live for that. Yeah, at race radio, we really like to, yeah, I guess give the fans' eye view of cycling.
0:44.3	We're not journalists.
0:45.7	We're definitely not.
0:47.0	We don't have a nose for a good story.
0:50.9	But we do love the stories behind racing and all of the fun and weird things involved in cycling.
1:00.0	And yeah, I did a great Flanders pilgrimage with my dad last week where we took the camper and we stood on the O quarmont and drank beers and watched the race
1:13.3	go by three times and it was fantastic amazing did you boo the uh VIP tent there was quite a lot
1:20.6	of singing and chanting uh at the VIP tent from the the non-VIP it's quite funny. So the, so the, so the listeners may me know,
1:29.8	like Flanders is one of the races where VIP tents have most been introduced as a kind of part
1:36.8	of the, the offering. And all across the race course, there are VIP tents on the, on key
1:42.4	parts of the course. And in some ways, I kind of get it
1:46.0	because it's quite hard to monetize cycling. It's not like a captive audience in a stadium
1:50.4	where you can sell tickets. So I get why they do it. Burn your mouth on a pie. Yeah, exactly.
1:56.6	I mean, you can do that as well, obviously, but. So I get it, but it does somewhat, yeah, they're all sort of champagne coughing, and it's
2:04.8	literally just like in football where in the second half, you know, 15 minutes after the first
2:09.7	half started that section of the stand, you know, the VIP is still empty. It's kind of like
2:14.7	they all suddenly rush in just to watch the race go by
2:17.5	and then they bugger off to drink champagne, whereas us hardened fans were drinking cans and saving our spot on the, on the barricades. Hot cans of Jupyler on that. Yeah. So that was Flanders. I'd like to think that in the VIP tent, they've got like themed cocktails, like the Marianna Voss. it would just be everything would be in it
2:35.5	it's got everything in it can do everything you want it to be
	...

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