King of the Ride

Jack Thompson rides more in a week than most cyclists will do in a year. In fact, with the nickname "Ultra Cyclist", Jack holds the Guinness Book of World Records title of most distanced ridden in one week at 3500km!

 

That's just the tip of the iceberg for Jack. Another unfathomable feat is that he's done three KOMs in three consecutive days in three different countries or the Taiwan KOM Challenge, four consecutive times in a row. 

 

But Jack is far more than just an ultra distance bike rider. His battle with mental health issues has sent him to a drug addiction and rehab and it has forced him onto his bike. Jack is chock full of stories and this conversation helps get the notion across that #itsoknottobeok.

 

Follow Jack on instagram at www.instagram.com/jackultracyclist

 

And be sure to check out his recent video documenting his Guinness record setting ride.

 

Your Guide for a Great Winter Ride!

This is a special one, welcome to King of the Ride podcast. Here we have return guest/sometimes-co-host Laura King and Ted talk about how to optimize your cold weather riding. You asked, we answered. After more than 1000 questions came pouring in, Laura and I summarized them and answer them today in this podcast.

Here in Vermont, where the sun rises at lunchtime and sets a few minutes later, we need to make the most of our riding window and that takes lots of hardware, software, and just the right equipment.

Here are some products mentioned in this podcast:

Velocio is the only clothing we use. From stifling hot to frigid cold, there is NO better clothing out there.

Alternating piping hot Ginger Mapleaid and Lemon Tea Mapleaid from UnTapped in a vacuum bottle is a definite. 

Bar Mitts are our dropbar bike hand covering of choice, now with Extreme Cold models.

45NRTH is our go-to for winter riding boots. Their Ragnarok are good MTB shoes for the slush and their Wolfgar are great in the deep frozen tundra. We also use their Cobrafist for arctic riding on a flat bar bike.

Planet Bike SpeedEZ are the fenders currently on my bike.

SKS Xtra Dry fender is currently on Laura's bike.

Rene Herse Hurricane Ridge tires when I need some tread. Otherwise their Barlow Pass or Snoqualmie Pass are totally fine -- wide and supple.

45NRTH Dillinger 5 are 5" studded tires for fat biking.

More questions? Send them to @iamtedking or @lauracameronking.

In the world of ultra long distance cycling events, Jay Petervary has likely done the race, won the race, or set the course record. A pioneer in ultra endurance cycling in all facets of two wheels -- from gravel biking to mountain biking to an early foray in road cycling -- Jay knows how to cover massive distances in a short period of time.

Looking back on the strange year that 2020 was, Jay and Ted discuss the direction both bikepacking and bikepack racing are going, his philosophies on each, his traditional perspective as one of the originals of bike packing, as well as a dive into his experiences in the wild frigid outback for his series of events around Fat Pursuit.

You can find Jay at @jay_petervary on instagram.

This is a very special episode as Laura King takes the mic and hosts our guest, Ted. Fielding questions submitted by you about the grueling 1,020 mile, self-supported Arkansas High Country Race that took place in late October and into November.

Ted set the FKT (fastest known time) just a hair under 5 days in this nonstop affair. Sit down and enjoy this conversation to hear how he prepared for the gnarliest single event he's ever been part of.

Arkansas High Country Official Site: here.

 

Back by popular demand, my wife Laura King is a guest on today's show! We last caught up with Laura on episode 55 in early March when she was less than one week away from giving birth. So what are the first six month of motherhood like with little baby Hazel? Better yet, what's life like when we three Kings pack into a Sprinter van and hit the road for two months?! Listening to this podcast will help paint the picture into all of that and much much more.

 

Bonus info:

To learn all about our van life trip, Laura created this handy link HERE. 

To support to my King Challenge fundraising ride -- and help me ride some absurd distance -- you can follow THIS link.

To learn all about the King Challenge, just head to KingChallenge.org.

And for all your DIYgravel needs, go HERE.

 

The list of accolades awarded to skiers doesn't get much more impressive than those belonging to Chris Davenport. Two-time world champion, X-Games medalist, Chris set an FKT on all of Colorado's 14ers and then all of Colorado's tallest 100 peaks. He's been in more than thirty ski movies by Matchstick Productions and Warren Miller, he's a commentator for ESPN, ABC, and Outside Television, plus he's pretty handy on a bike.

Ted caught up with Chris in his hometown of Snowmass, Colorado where this conversation took place in Chris's garage which is like a living museum of cool outdoor toys.

He's philanthropic with his time, as we'll discuss today, and is a husband as well as father of three terrific boys.

For more about Chris, visit www.chrisdavenport.com or on instagram, @SteepSkiing

Chances are good that if you listen to this podcast, you know Payson McElveen or know of Payson McElveen. Professional mountain biker, professional gravelisto, media maven, fashion guru, collector of shoes, podcaster, Payson knows how to stay busy.

With a quick visit to Durango on the cross-country trip for the Kings, they visited Payson and his girlfriend Nichole for a thorough high altitude fun weekend, whereupon Payson and Ted sat down to follow up on their first back-and-forth podcast with each other. This is purely getting to the knitty gritty of Payson's upbringing and what's brought him to where he is now on two wheels and otherwise.

Bonus offer for you:

I trust you've heard of WHOOP. Want a WHOOP for free? Just follow this link and you'll be on your way: https://glnk.io/ovrz/tedking 

Jess Cerra is a professional cyclist with a handful of other feathers in her cap (...or helmet). A published, professional chef and entrepreneur as the owner of JoJé Bars, Jess has raced at the highest level of women's cycling and recently made the transition to gravel. 

During the King family trip across the country, we visited Whitefish, MT for a trip to Jess's hometown where she showed us around the gravel scene in and around Glacier National Park. 

That was stunning. This conversation is stunning. Jess has hilarious and heart-wrenching stories of what it takes to ride a bike for a living.

Welcome to gravel! Angela Naeth's story is one of tenacity and fulfillment. With high highs and difficult lows, she shares her fascinating trajectory through the sport of triathlon which coincidentally has her lining up for the SugarCane 200 in January 2020. With health now on her side, Angela is at a point where she's writing the script to her story rather than having it written for her. 2020 is wide open for possibility and that allows more gravel in her travel. Despite the global pandemic that we find ourselves in, despite not knowing about this pandemic when this conversation was recorded, Angela's positivity is almost tangible. 

Find more about Angela at AngelaNaeth.com

Read about IRaceLikeAGirl at iracelikeagirl.com

And follow along #DIYgravel at iamtedking.com/diygravel

 

On a pleasant Friday afternoon in early May, Geoff and Ted cracked into bottles of Chimay beer, raised a glass, and sipped and chatted... from across a computer screen and across the country.

At his US home in Truckee, CA, Geoff Kabush tells tales that are quite frankly of legend -- and that legend spans more than two decades of professional cycling. From his time at three Olympic games, to how it came to be that he went head to head against Yao Ming in 2008 in Beijing to how he came about with this legendary Coach K cyclocross training techniques, we'll discuss a crazy ride at the Tour of Cuba, his time of Jittery Joes in a US Postal/Discovery Channel era at the Tour of Georgia, where the Dopers Suck campaign came from, chat about his brief but successful running career, who his heroes are from cycling, and much more.

Be sure to check out the YouTube video to see the amazing and hilarious anecdotes from this show: https://youtu.be/UzFUveyGZSU

Join the #DIYgravel revolution at www.iamtedking.com/diygravel