Elucidation
In a recent post, I talked about how behind the scenes here at IamTedKing I have the ability to see how people have stumbled upon this here site. More particularly, I can what search term they used in Google (or perhaps the new Bing?!) to find the www.iamtedking.missingsaddle.com website. I noticed a few queries of late that multiple people have asked and I would therefore like to elucidate these issues.1) "What size bike does Ted King ride?"Answer: 58cm Cervelo S2. Fits like a charm.2) "What's cooler than being cool?"Answer: Apparently me since it brought you to my website. Nice.3) "Ted King handsome"Answer: Well that wasn't much of a question, but I'm flattered all the same. Umm, yeah, so just like question #2, this query brought you to iamtedking, so apparently I'm handsome too. Gosh, now I'm blushing!4) "Ted King Tour de France"Answer: Obviously not this year, my friends. Or maybe not "obviously" since three people Googled it just yesterday. Once again, I'm flattered that here we are on stage 10 of the Tour people think I'm there racing. Alas, after one grand tour in my legs in this my rookie year of European racing, I'm perfectly content. Maybe TdF in 2010, eh?! Definitely a goal of mine.Next up, here are two recommendations from the Random Entertainment Department of IamTedKing.1) Truth in 24 - this is a free movie download found on iTunes about the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race. I don't follow car racing whatsoever, but this is definitely fascinating flick and worthy of your time.2) Life in Technicolor - go YouTube it. You're looking for the music video by Coldplay. Actually, cancel that... Please allow me to do the dirty work of finding the site and you just click HERE. This video is shockingly original and the song rocks. Bon.A buddy of mine from college, Jon Brand, has come over to Europe to write a story about me, which is pretty cool. He came to the Tour of Austria, which concluded last Sunday after eight arduous days. He is now in France covering some big race there and his writing can be found HERE. He’s a freelance writer for a few different notable media outlets, and I’m just as impressed by his photos! I’ve poached a few of them from him, but there are plenty more to be found on the photo albums on his site.Here’s one of Jon and me before the start.
Here is Martin and me having recently finished summiting the Kitzbuhel. Four words: Hard, hard, hard, and rain.
To describe this climb as “hard” is similar to calling an eon “long.” In both cases, you might have some nerdy character poke up his head out from the peanut gallery and say some garbage like, “Umm, well technically there are harder/longer things than the Kitzubuhel/an eon…” Right right, whatever.At 8.5km average about 14% gradient and with signs on the side of the road showing 17%, then 19%, and then an insulting 23.5% (!) you’d be hard pressed to call this climb anything but hard.Lastly, here is one on my first time ever on a P4. I was fairly cooked by this point in the race – stage 7 of 8 and after two hard crashes on slick wet Austrian roads – but I can tell you that this bike is noticeably fast. Like a hot knife through butter, baby!
Of note is that two of these three pictures are in the pleasant sunshine, but don’t think ToA was sunny, because it was no walk in the sun shine park! As I recall we had rain on stages one through six. Bugger. That being said, the race itself was pleasantly difficult, a fun challenge, and a great experience. Right, not exactly a sterling race report filled with “yeah yeah, we won!” but that’s just because I left room for improvement. If I’m not at the TdF in one year, I’d like to come back and challenge Austria once again.