King of the Ride

Ryan Cochran-Siegle is one of America's best alpine skiers and on his day, he's one of the World's very best. Ryan is a Vermonter and learned to ski just down the road in at the community centric and petite Cochran Ski Area. He's a junior world champion in both the downhill and combined. He's steadily moved up the ranks, enjoying high highs and dealing with the lows that come with any professional...

Buckle up folks, because this is a good'n! Ashley and Jered Gruber are a husband and wife team of cycling photographers with a fascinating story to tell. Especially if you ask them! We sat down in Italy for this hour long conversation covering their genesis through the sport, the business model of photography, and the philosophy of how their work fits into the bigger picture among other things. Th...

Sarah Sturm is a verb. She's a rider, a racer, a mentor, a coach, a happy bundle of energy. She's the inaugural 2021 Leadboat champion, then the very next week won the Last Best Ride in Whitefish, MT which is where this podcast was recorded just a few short hours after she won. Covering all aspects of a busy race season, how she got into the sport, the development and direction of gravel, plus ple...

Congratulations to Emma Langley, the winner of the 2021 Rooted Vermont p/b UnTapped! Not a bad result for her third ever gravel race. She's picking the big ones as her team, Tibco-SVB, has seen her line up at Unbound, BWR, and now Rooted Vermont this year. We're thrilled to have hosted Emma and her teammates, plus ALL riders at the 2021 race. Emma shares her perspective on the state of cycling. Th...

Let the history books show, Roger Brown is an "Unbound 200 finisher"! I don't know if anyone completed the 206 mile Unbound race on less training than Roger, but I sure don't know anyone who accomplished what he did on as little training as he did. Roger Brown is my friend, a co-owner and co-founder of UnTapped, he's a pillar of the Richmond, Vermont community, father of four, and a man who's alwa...

If you're a fan of US cycling then Coryn Rivera is a household name. One of the most accomplished cyclists in the entire world, this Filipino-American racer, Coryn is a ferociously fast sprinter who now races for the UCI Women's WorldTour team, Team DSM. This is one of the most fun interviews I've been part of as I play the second ever edition of Twenty Questions with Coryn. Enjoy! To see the near...

Lael Wilcox is one of the most accomplished ultra endurance cyclists in the world. From the Trans Am to Tour Divide, she knows how to cover massive distances in a speedy amount of time. But she's not hellbent on racing, her attitude and perspective offers a refreshing view on competition in the newest age of cycling. She's opening doors for people of all walks of life as she rides from her home st...

For obvious reasons, I wouldn't be where I am today were it not for my dad. But that line goes well beyond the literal. My dad was tremendously supportive throughout my upbringing and that includes during and after he suffered a stroke on March 23, 2003. Fast-forward to 2021 and dad has just returned home after a two month stay in a rehab hospital after suffering yet another brain injury.  Not fun...

Professional cyclist Ben King has had a lot on his plate lately. With the birth of his first child last fall, this stalwart of American cycling with twelve years in the professional ranks, still didn't know if he would have a contract for 2021. Covid threw everything up in the air of the already wild schedule for a World Tour cyclist, and no one knew where it was going to land. But Ben is back in...

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 Challeng...

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...

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 T...

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...

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 h...

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...

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...

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 aroun...

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...

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...

Holy moly, where does time go? Welcome to episode number 60 of King of the Ride podcast. And welcome a very special guest, professional mountain biker, 2x Olympian, Lea Davison! Lea is a Vermont native from Jericho, the very next town over from where Ted lives now. She's a perpetual body in motion, having ran in college, skied division 1 in college, earned a degree in college and then segued all o...

In the latest round of covid 19-Questions, Ted and Toms are sitting in Vermont and Girona, respectively, catching up on what it's like from the perspective of a World Tour rider operating through coronavirus. Toms Skujins is known for his affinity for potatoes, for winning heroic stages of Tour of California, and for proudly wearing the KOM jersey in the Tour de France. This conversation ranges fr...

Rebecca Rusch's accolades put her in a league of her own. This seven time world champion is back from a harrowing Iditarod Trail Invitational with stories to tell! This is a self-supported 350 mile race across the Alaskan wilderness in the heart of winter.  This is the second of the covid... 19-Questions series and this one especially is greatly enhanced with a video component. If you have the abi...

Contemporary times call for a little restructuring, so amid coronavirus the King of the Ride podcast is introducing a new series featuring 19 hard hitting questions aptly titled The covid... 19-QUESTIONS! Will we get to all the questions? Only time (and listening) will tell. Tim is back with his second appearance on King of the Ride, with 50 episodes spanning the time between visits. Zoom back to...

Veteran pro, Laurens Ted Dam raced professionally from 2003 through 2019 for the likes of Rabobank, Lotto Jumbo, Sunweb, and CCC. But unlike many of his European professional cyclist counterparts, he's so full of energy, he wears his two young boys out! Now retired from the World Tour, Laurens and Ted catch up on all things that are part of the LTD lifestyle, which is "Live Slow Ride Fast". This b...

My better half, Laura King, is someone I mention often on this show. So it's probably no surprise that I've received a lot of suggestions that we should have her on the show! Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, Laura King to the King of the Ride podcast. This episode covers Laura's background, where she found her athletic drive and general tenacity that sparks her every day. It explores how she ended u...