S13 Ep31: KM0: The Beast In The East
The Cycling Podcast
The Cycling Podcast
4.8 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The race celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, with the 2025 edition taking place on Sunday, April 27. Held in the East Midlands, the race criss-crosses the countryside, taking in rough, rutted farm tracks. If it was created today it would be considered a gravel race. The Tour of Flanders has the Koppenberg, Gent-Wevelgem has the Kemmelberg, Paris-Roubaix has the Arenberg – the Cicle Classic has Somerberg.
Lionel Birnie explores the history and character of the UK's highest-ranked one-day race and hears from the founder Colin Clews who had the idea, Matt Stephens, who was third in the first edition two decades ago, Conor Dunne, who won in 2016 and James McCallum, who was on the podium in arguably the most dramatic and certainly the muddiest edition in 2012.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Do you know what I said earlier I'm enjoying cycling? |
| 0:03.0 | No, I hate it that. |
| 0:05.0 | The first 60K I thought I was going to die, |
| 0:08.0 | then I kind of messed my bars up, |
| 0:10.0 | and then I rode home Grumpy the last 15K. |
| 0:15.0 | The Spring Classics are all about the Burgs, |
| 0:17.0 | whether it's the Kemmelberg at Gemp Wevergengen, |
| 0:20.0 | the Patterberg and Coppenberg at the |
| 0:21.9 | Tour of Flanders, and even the forest of Aramburg at Parirubay. But have you heard of |
| 0:27.5 | Somerberg right here in the United Kingdom, the focal point of a classic spring race that later |
| 0:33.1 | this month celebrates the 20th anniversary of its first edition. The roads are rough and rutted, |
| 0:38.8 | the racing furious and chaotic and everyone who makes it to the finish has a story to tell. |
| 0:44.5 | It's a race that requires nerves of steel. Bikes of steel can be a smart choice too, given the |
| 0:49.5 | terrain, and luck can play a significant part too. You need to be good to win the cycle classic, of course you do, |
| 0:56.8 | but you also need to avoid misfortune. |
| 0:59.7 | Like the major cobble classics that inspired the race, |
| 1:02.9 | it rewards perseverance and never say die spirit |
| 1:05.9 | and a determination to just keep going forwards |
| 1:08.7 | because you never know what might happen next. |
| 1:11.6 | Oh there's a crash. Oh yeah, riders on the floor again. |
| 1:14.6 | It started life in 2005 as the Rutland Melton Cycle Classic and then had sponsorship from the |
| 1:20.6 | region's development agency and became the East Midlands International Cycle Classic |
... |
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