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Ted King has such a rich cycling history it’s hard to know where to start with introductions. After a decade long career in the World Tour, Ted was one of the first ex-pro bodies to make the jump into US gravel racing. Kicking full time cycling retirement down the road. Two wins at UNBOUND (formerly the Dirty Kanza) and a flurry of other victories and you might say Ted had truly found his kingdom. Notably, in 2020 he came 1st whilst setting a new FKT at Arkansas High Country Race as an introduction to Ultra racing.
lives in Richmond, Vermont, with wife and their young family. Despite both Ted and Laura being extremely competitive cyclists, they both find the time to share the realities of fitting training in around parenting, and just life in general. This lighthearted and relatable tone on their social media seems very much the reality having spoken to Ted. A genuinely nice guy with a enthusiastic attitude toward participating in some of the most gruelling genres of bike racing.
Having just finished 1st at , we were delighted to catch up with him during his long journey back to Vermont.
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I know you’ve dipped your toe in the water with ultra-cycling in the past, but what's brought you back on the scene for the Race Around Rwanda?
Great question without a simple answer. It’s a combination of the intrigue and interest to visit a place that’s entirely new to me. Rwanda is hosting the UCI Road World Championships this fall so this seemed like a cool opportunity to see the entire country ahead of it being on a lot of cycling fans’ radar. Additionally, I call Vermont home and we’re in the midst of a great winter for skiing, but a tough one for cycling, so this was part of the plan to cram a 40 hour training week into two and a half days. And on and on, basically there’s just something purely in the name, Race Around Rwanda, that invokes interest.
We’ve got an overview of your bike for the RaR, but tell us more about the setup and your favourite/most essential pieces of kit for ultra-racing?
I’m blessed in this life with carbon and rubber, so I have plenty of options and am thrilled with this final set-up and I can’t think of anything I’d change! So that’s the Cannondale Topstone Carbon, which I describe as Cannondale’s adventure gravel bike. They have more purebred race bikes in their lineup, but this bike has additional clearance for some massive tires and the Kingpin suspension system (Cannondale swears they didn’t name it after me, but I still like to take credit for it) for a more smoothed out ride.
Rene Herse’s knobby look similar in a variety of sizes and Oracle Ridge 48s were the Goldilocks width for me. I trust their Endurance casing on any surface and didn’t have any issues whatsoever. Those are paired up with Zipp Firecrest 303, which are speedy and aero and wide internal and all the requisite things.
My friends Matt and Katherine Moosa run and they’re the best – the company and the people. That half frame bag is actually a custom bag from a different bike of mine, which is why it shows a little bit of sag up front. But Matt is the man and he’ll custom outfit me in a new bag at the drop of a hat. I used the stem bag, but then migrated it to the front of my handlebars because when I stand I knock it with my knee when it’s back by the stem. That works great for battery charging and snacks.
I am a big fan of the USWE top tube bag, thanks to the magnet closure, but it still seals up pretty much entirely water-tight. And how frequently I was diving into that bag, it’s worth investigating.
This is my first time using an Aeropack and good gravy, what a game changer. It’s just so stable and free from that rocking that inevitably takes place with a massive saddlebag.
Tell us about your fuelling and nutrition plan for long events. How much of your intake at RaR was maple syrup? Let’s talk grams…
150 grams of carbohydrate per hour, every hour for 48 hours. Kidding, I’m kidding…
I suppose it’s possible to bring along every ounce of fuel you need for a ride of this distance, but that sounds heavy to carry over 60,000 feet of climbing. I still brought a fair bit and think I did a good job divvying it out over the course of the entire route. I visited the office before heading overseas and stocked up before this trip. I brought 30 packets of UnTapped in various flavors. Some straight maple, a bunch of salted gels for added electrolytes, and Coffee UnTapped knowing I’d be battling 12 hours of darkness every day.
Lots of stops at what I’d call the American equivalent of a corner convenience store, but it’s more like what a North American would call an entryway into their house where they have water, soda, crackers, cookies, and bananas for sale. I bought literal gallons of water along the route, cookies fairly often, and otherwise ate my full meals at the four checkpoints.
The race organization is awesome in hiring those checkpoint hotels to have a buffet of rice, pasta, chicken, steak, French fries, and a few other things up for grabs at all times. I had the foresight in the day before the race to buy a Tupperware container and had brought along a camping spoon, so I loaded up mostly pasta and rice into that, which served me well in a few situations where I was far from anything for sale and super hungry.
I also brought a few Perc instant coffee packs, which I had on both mornings after a hearty 90 minutes of sleep. Similar story with to start my day with something resembling vitamins and minerals. And because I had a few sitting in my camping bin at home, I brought a few hot-water-added camping meals which turned out to be a huge help. The fruity, oatmeal-granola slurry which I soaked overnight and consumed in the morning turned out to be a huge help without being much weight.
How do ultra-cycling events fit into your training plan for returning to elite gravel racing, especially when based from home in Vermont?
After nearly a decade self-coaching, I’ve been working with someone I know and trust since the start of 2024 and he’s just such a helpful voice of reason for me. Like I mentioned, our Vermont winter has been harsh in terms of logging outdoor rides, so this winter has featured lots of indoor trainer rides, gym work, nordic skiing, weekly running, and just playing in the snow with my kids. I love the efficiency of the trainer, but having done plenty of 3-6 hour indoor rides over the course of my career that I’m more often erring on winter quality over pure quantity. (This is also where the joke about doing a 40 hour training block in just 2.5 days comes in. Move over Tucson, say hello to Rwanda!)
I recently realized that whatever phase of my cycling career has been over the course of the past two decades, I’ve done a January training camp… right up until 2025. Of course the start of RaR was immediately after January (start time 5am on February 2), so with a busy first month of the year on the home front already, I just buckled down and did pretty much everything I could. I was really hoping for the typical 2 day stretch where temperatures spike north of 40 degrees and I would consider a 12-plus hour outdoor ride to test out all day endurance or riding in the dark, but I feel like most of January at home was in the teens or below so that was prohibitive. Blah blah blah, I just worked with my coach, trusted the approach we came up with, and it seems to have worked out! Winter endurance: complete. Now time to fine tune intensity before my more 'traditional' gravel season kicks off.
So how it all fits together into a pro gravel race schedule; from here I’ll pursue a more traditional non-dot watching calendar. MidSouth is a great early season race, Sea Otter, Gravel Locos, so on and so forth. Although there’s a good chance I’ll use a tracker and be lining up for the Unbound XL.
Finally, could you give us an overview of the upcoming season, what are your big goals?
I really love that I’ve experienced so many events over my career and that’s something that still gets me excited. I love the races that are a pillar of my calendar year over year, but doing something new keeps me on my toes too. So my 2025 looks like a bit of this and a bit of that, enjoying the different series like Life Time, UCI, and Gravel Earth. Bikepacking takes it out of you, so I can’t picture doing too many races in one year, but even running on fumes right this second, I’m eyeing some more here this year.