After an all too speedy but successful swing through New England after the spring Classics of which you can see the highlights in this brief photo essay, I hopped aboard a plane bound for the crisp, thin air of Colorado.

Tour of California is next on the racing horizon, so an amalgamation of friends, family, and ample New England training in late April provided me the opportunity to press-and-hold what I call the Life Reset button. Thoroughly brought back up to speed on life, backed mail, and bills, plus it brought me here to the Centennial State. The first few days upon Coloradan touchdown, I was with my aunt and uncle, with whom I lived briefly back in 2001 when I had a few months of relaxing, outdoorsy reprieve before starting college. So not exactly parents to me, they’re superb people whom I know and love and like to pretend to call my three-months surrogate parents. Back then in aught-one, I soaked up the mountain life and continued to cement Colorado in my mind as an excellent place to someday call home — that is, when I hang up my bike and move more permanently out of my suitcase. Ahh, someday…

So now thoroughly lost in the time warp that I’ve unfolded to you above, fast forward to last week, the weather was stellar here in Colorado those first few days, the training was stunning as testament to my laser precise tan lines, which had previously long been hidden by the arctic freeze across Europe all spring. Here I am soaking in natural excellence near the very top of Flagstaff.

This being spring in Colorado, they’ve already received their standard alternating snowy dump/beautiful weather/blizzard/stunning weather that’s characteristic of this area the past month or two. Thinking that this was now out of the system — especially with the last storm less than a week ago dropping a foot of snow in Boulder — it came to some as a surprise that there was another big’n in the forecast.

Because it’s been so frigging freezing across Europe the previous six months, I finally had my first hard effort amid 70 degree heat which resulted in acidic sweat burning my eyes. It hurt so good. So that happened one day and then I woke up to this the next day. Please note Timmy front and center out for a morning hunt with Karli:

Let me toss in the reminder that this is Colorado Awesoming, so how does one make limeade from these limes? I hung out with my cousins by road tripping it to Denver to speak to my cousins’ 2nd and 3rd grade class. It’s hilarious speaking to really well versed seven and eight year olds as found here in the fittest state in the nation, Colorado. For example, when one of these adorable kiddos politely raises his hand when I am telling the crew about the “Tour of Colorado” by correctly explaining that it’s the “USA Pro Cycling Challenge”… now that’s a kick.

Cousin Billy, with his radical bleach streaked hair and his ear to ear grin, is just a little bit stoked that he got to bring me to school for Show-and-Tell.

It’s not just fun and games and making excuses when there’s a blizzard spewing outside. Back to Boulder and back to the office.

And, of course amid Colorado Awesoming, one day later we had a bit of this cloudless sky and brisk perfect training weather.

And on a side note, I also met Justin’s of Justin’s Nut Butter fame. He’s the frigging man, so I’m mildly star struck in this photo. The King of Nut Butters meets the King of… iamtedKING. The entire operation at Justin’s is outstanding — their original farmers’ market to going big story, their ethics and ethos, and best yet their FLAVOR. Consider me a fan.

More to the point, all the fun and travel and adventure and excitement and baked goods and beers and copious wine and overall gluttonous living and burning the candle at both ends in order to maximize all things awesome have come to a close. Which is only slightly ironic that I now find myself in Napa for the better part of November – there are nooooo good restaurants nor wine here, right? Right. Good.

We can all agree that over the past month the internet has experienced a noticeable dearth of anything interesting. The fact that I haven’t written on this website in a month exhibits an starkly obviously correlation. So in order to bring you all back up to speed, please allow me to take you along my travels over the past 45′ish days, where we’ll rehash a bit of September and then tackle October before we all jump into November together.

Mid-September brought me to the rugged and pastoral Green Mountain state of Vermont. Which brings up a point of confusion in regards to me. Not that it really matters nor should you care, but let me clear the air and announce here and henceforth that I’m from New Hampshire, still have residence in New Hampshire, attended college in Vermont, have family in Connecticut, visit Massachusetts frequently when am back in New England, and we have a family island house in Maine of which I am the sixth generation to be lucky enough to summer there. (Yes, summer is a verb when you’re a snotty New Englander lucky enough to have a summer house in Maine.) Got it? Again, good.

Vermont brought great weather and some stunning scenery. That will likely be the theme of these past 7+ weeks since I seem to only go to stunningly beautiful places in the offie.

I participated in my requisite “handful” of cross races, which is anything from one to six depending on my level off off-season vigor. You’d be smart to guess that I’m smoking everyone and winning in this photo at the Green Mountain Cyclocross weekend. Unfortunately, you would be incorrect.

Speaking of, umm… beautiful landscapes, I made my way to Las Vegas for Interbike for the first time in a trio of years. Which was thrilling as usual and well worth the trip, but reminded me that I only need to visit Sin City once every three years to feel perfectly satiated in the department of overwhelming senses. Bright lights, loud noises, caustic smells, and delicious food. I also bought these shorts for myself. They are stunning.

Lining up 5th row, even with my copious UCI points (or maybe UCI point, singular. I don’t remember) did not help my cause at CrossVegas. The field was STACKED. Worse yet, the officials warned us that we would be immediately ejected if we took a beer feed. Which is lame as heck since it was hot as balls. Thankfully after a few embarrassing laps, I pulled myself together as well as pulled $10 worth of dollar hand-ups. That’s ten bucks more than anyone else who finished well out of the money like I did. Suckers.

I graciously have stolen this photo from Danny Munson. The crowd looks riveted.

The best way of celebrating a criterium in your home city is to win it! However, when the field is lined top to bottom with crit racers and when you haven’t raced a crit in a quarter-dozen years (that’s three years if you’re counting along today), then the next best way to celebrate is to sign some dude’s cast at the start line.

Early October had me treking down the eastern seaboard, beginning in NH, down to VA by way of NYC, then back to PA, and onto CT, and back to NH. This is all of course well before that heinous bit#& Hurricane Sandy reared her ugly head so things were still tranquil and beautiful. This photo is from the PA portion with the Bicycling Fall Classic; in particular, this is the ride winning final breakaway (“ride” and not “race”). Those thousand of us smart enough to disregard the weather forecasters call for rain, who were entirely incorrect, had an incredible day in the saddle.

Remember hanging out with my cousins? Well two weeks after kicking it with them in Vermont during my glorious VT50 win, I swung through CT and had a Patriots game, massive dinner, watched a four year old break dance the night away, and went for a bike ride to the center of town the next day. 2.6 miles round trip. Ayuup, all of 2.6 miles. Off season watts!

I may have mentioned gluttonous living and sweetbreads are nearly always categorized in the over the top delicious/over the top surely unhealthy column. Here they are at Fore Street, which I would argue is the best restaurant east of the Mississippi. Don’t believe me? Give it a try.

I went hiking a quartet of times and twice with my good friend Damon. I also attended his wedding this fall, so hats off to him for getting married during the season in which I can actually attend his wedding. As for the hike, it was warm and pleasant down at basecamp 1, then frigid and pleasant at the summit.

It has also been three years since I attended the Dempsey Challenge last. It’s up in the middle of nearly nowhere Maine and it’s truly amazing the number of people who come from far and wide to catch a glimpse of Patrick Dempsey. Thankfully, I’m called up as a VIP rider so I get to hang out with him and end up as the buffer amid a gaggle of frenzied soccer moms. It’s very entertaining. Plus there’s Gritty’s for ample late night entertainment.

The 38 degrees of rain on ride day were enough to make me want to keep trucking the entire day and not really stop and warm up (because warm up is followed promptly by cool down). But the day before was another smaller ride and I got to know Matt Updike who is a really great guy and something of a stud both on and off his bike; the paralympic gold medal in London this year is a testament to that. This photo shows Matt teaching Patrick how to use his ridiculously low to the ground bike with Freddie Rodriguez giving pointers to the side. Or else Fred is just trying to hold Patrick’s hand.

Six words, folks: Krempels King of the Road Challenge. My BFF, teammate to the stars for two years, and TBI survivor himself, Timmy Duggan made the week-long trip to the east coast to kick it with vigor, eat seafood like a champ, crush wine, and speak about TBIs to the Krempels Center. Plus he saddled up and rode the KKotRC with me, Jesse Anthony, Pat McCarty, and 200+ of our best friends and family.

I spy with my little eye…

Here we are slaying the dirt, also with vigor. Actually the dirt has just abruptly ended. Which is probably safer.

Our ride also featured an off season smorgasbord of riding delicacies. Peanut Butter & Co., Simply Stroops, and of course New England’s favorite Marshmallow Fluff were only part of what powered us through the ride.

Sheesh, where are we. Still two weeks of off season to go!

The day after the ride I went with a triplet of friends plus extended family to a New England Patriots game. I’m a Pats fan with the best of ‘em, but I only go to about one game per year. Or every other year. These guys know how to rock out a good game, and it all starts with the pre-game tailgating party. This array of scallops is only a taste of what we had on the tailgate that day. And yes, those are very nice bottles of vino.

The man, the myth, the legend George Hincapie retired this year. He’s a stalwart member of the pro peloton and as an American, something of a pillar to look up to over the years. His accomplishments of 418 grand tours and however-many national championship wins is enviable. I was flattered to be a distinguished guest among friends, family, and my ilk of pro cyclists at his Gran Fondo. I give him a hard time because I tell George that I was coming to settle our on-going battle of best tennis player in the pro peloton (me) and he really clinched my arrival when I learned chef Michael Chiarello would be cooking. I’m in!

This blurry and terrible picture is of Chiarello on the far left, his right hand man from Uruguay who is awesome in the middle, chef Lucas Euser in the middle, and my good friend Tebbetts stoked to be poaching the photo on the right. Hi Matt!

George’s Gran Fondo was ridiculously hard. I’m 100% certain that the folks who designed this course did so in mid-season fitness. They didn’t realize that late October would be zilch in the fitness department. Ouch.

This photo is a pure thing of beauty. I’m, umm, smiling and saying hello, the peloton is shattered, Scotty to my right is actually smiling despite the 18% grade, and Brian is looking less than content behind Scotty. Good work team breakaway!

Meanwhile in Charleston, SC there are more good friends needing a visit. Moreover, it’s a corner of the world that I don’t know much about, so I took a 48 hour reprieve there. Actually it was slightly longer because even though we had pristine weather, Sandy was wreaking havoc on the northeastern United States so my flight was delayed a whole bunch of… hours. And thankfully just hours and not days, because not even 36 hours of being home, I unpacked, repacked, and hit the road onto Napa where I find myself today.

So from Greenville, SC it was on to Charleston. In Charleston is Husk. And in Husk is an amazing restaurant. Their 2011 Best New Restaurant in America claim was worth investigating. Everything we ordered was delicious and the pig ear tacos were a highlight for sure. Turn on your adventure and taste buds, cause Husk is awesome.

It wasn’t just gourmandism ruing the day in Charleston. I also went for a pair of runs and took in some history. This here is a photo of Fort Sumter on the central island in the distance. 42 arbitrary Ted King history points if you can tell me exactly why this place sits prominently in the history books.

And that, my friends, is a chronological smattering of my off season adventures. I assure you that this is only on fraction of the fun had, but I figure this is enough to give you a taste of what I’ve been up to of late, which explains my lack of blogging.

Bring on monk-like living and the ruckus of 2013!

In my humble opinion, the bad idea of the day is to run 50 miles. Off road. In the mud. At 6am. In sub-optimal weather. Over hill and dale and all throughout the Green Mountains of Ascutney, VT for the Vermont 50. Yuck, that sounds miserable.

BUT I’m not a runner. I’m a cyclist, so the idea of mountain biking those 50 miles sounded like an excellent off-season activity. After all, I had a title to defend. Better yet, I had family to see.

My crazy cousin Jay (father to a pair of those children above), his friend Amy (mother to the rest of those children above, myself not included), and about 548 of their good friends took part in the running portion of the Vermont 50. While I think that sounds horribly unpleasant, they both succeeded and had a smashing time in the process.

Backtracking a bit, my cousin’s family and their friend’s family rented a house nearby and made a sweet weekend getaway out of it. The fringe benefit of being their cousin is that I got to tag along. In an awesomely quirky mountain cabin, complete with stuffed dear heads, gazelles, puzzles, and a fire-pit, we had a great time. Plus I got to Vermont in time to see the crew above dominate the mini-run. 1 mile around Ascutney sounds like fun. Multiply that by 50 and that sounds less fun. But that’s just me.

Meanwhile, I woke up at 2:53am so that I could be fully digested and ready to roll at early hour of 6am. Waking up to rumbling thunder and fog and mist so thick that merely driving to the venue seems dangerous was an ominous start to the day. But upon arriving to the race, even before 5am, the energy and excitement of the additional 800 cyclists becomes downright palpable! Or maybe it was just the fog and the two dozen port-o-johns. Either way, people were stoked and so was I! With the ginormous help of the cannon atop my head at the pitch-black hour of 6am under, I was able to take the lead early and carry that momentum to an overall smashing race win… as well as the new course record.

Again, here I am with my adoring familial fans – Anna, Emma, Freddy, Paige, and Luke. (I’m the guy in the middle who is over 5′ tall.)

Oh, well worth the side note: the night before the race before going to bed, these amazing, 3-5 feet tall people performed a talent show. A dancing Luke, the three year old, took the cake in my book.

In addition to that record, I also took home a beautiful glass container of Vermont maple syrup from Top Acres Farm, a block of Vermont’s best known cheese: Cabot Private Stock Cheddar. Plus a pair of Vermont Peanut Butter’s jars of nutty excellence. (Actually that’s an exaggeration; I bought one jar the previous day at race registration – because I think VTPB does great things – but then I won another jar, so that pretty much made my day. If one is good, two are better.)

STRAVA! Plus a handful of well deserved KOMs if you ask me.

Another good idea is to take advantage of the 6am start as it pertains to the rest of your day. Namely, finish up the race a hair after 10am, soak up the limelight of having just won such a massive bike race, bask in the bike cleaning station and warm showers before they become caked in frigid mud, partake in a tasty sponsor beverage, enormous BBQ, and festive music, and STILL have time to drive 3 hours south to eastern Massachusetts and watch the nation’s coolest bike race, GP Gloucester! Take folks, take a page out of my book: you’re not living unless you’re living.

I wisely opted not to double-up and I therefore packed up shop and drove down to MA to watch Gloucester rather than race it. I don’t do well in muddy cross races and this was some of the finest mud America has to offer.

Let the off season adventures continue! Oh speaking of which, I have a really good idea for you…

I could say the “USA Pro Cycling Challenge” or I could incorrectly say “Tour of Colorado” or I could simply say “Colorado”. Anyway, that race in the end of August in the Centennial State pretty much just came and went in my book. I won’t dwell on it, because I already did that for the days afterwards. But suffice it to say that a) it wasn’t my cup of tea and b) racing over a 30km ascent the first thing into a stage, plus pedaling yourself over 12,000 feet in the process is difficult as is. Next throw aggressively throwing up into the mix which interferes with the all important process of breathing at 12,000′. I was seeing stars going over Independence Pass and my day didn’t get much better in the 60km chase following that.

A highlight of that morning before gasping what seemed like my final breaths, though, was meeting young Dante here. The kid is a cycling fanatic, but perhaps you could have guessed that from his daily attire here. It’s so cool to see that level of passion at such a young age in America. I was playing with hockey cards and GI Joes at that age – definitely not yet playing “peloton.”

Me: “Just keep doing what you’re doing, Dante. Trust me kiddo, chicks dig scars.”

So post Colorado, I then enjoyed a bit of Boulder in all her Rocky Mountain splendor with hosts and best friends the Duggans, before setting off back to the right coast for eventually this week’s Quebec City and Montreal Grand Prix-es. Getting my head back in the right place really couldn’t happen in a better place than right here in Vermont. Middlebury College is where I fell in love with cycling, and quite literally Middlebury and Appalachain Gaps are where I found cycling (see, that’s where I first watched a bike race. I obviously picked a good one since that’s where my brother Robbie won the first of his three collegiate national titles).

If Normal Rockwell were alive today and somehow mysteriously into virtual reality instead of painting picturesque scenes, AND if he wanted to create a New England late summer weekend, he truly couldn’t have done it better than this four day Labor Day block. The perfect weather matched the impeccable scenery paralleled the idyllic roads in tandem with the lush green foliage that’s just beginning to show the hints of burnt orange and red. The pumpkins are coming out for fall jack-o-lantern’ing, the dirt roads were aplenty, and the stonewalls and maple syrup were as abundant as I remember. I’m fairly certain that I never once stopped grinning for the full 96 hour weekend.

I’m equally sure that part of the exorbitant good times are due to smashing out three progressively massiver rides on these roads upon which I found cycling. My nostalgia bone was tickled to the point of tears. I’ll quit waxing poetic here – just please recognize that even though this was merely meant as a training-block get-away, this was a very special weekend that just makes me say wow and thankful I’m able to do what I do.

Remember this very weekend in 2010? I was racing and looking dapper in the the Green Mountain Stage Race leader’s jersey for half the race. Soon after that, however, a whole bunch of political mumbo jumbo ensued that I don’t understand, and the UCI decided that they would prefer my WorldTour colleagues and I not race rather than support local races like this. The Green Mountain Stage Race is either the best race you’ve never heard of… or the best race you’ve ever heard of. Period.

This photo above is from the West Hill B’n'B looking out upon another flawless green mountain morning. With requisite “laundry” hanging on the front porch, our hosts Susan and Peter are obviously in the right mood for the weekend. I don’t what was greater: their incredibly benevolent hospitality or their selection of oatmeal toppings. Both were exquisite (yes, complete with maple syrup, obviously).

Right out my back door lays the steepest one mile of pavement in America, Lincoln Gap. Don’t believe me? Google it. I rode it twice, because there are two sides to ever coin and two sides to ever Lincoln Gap and they’re both frigging steep.

As I said, dirt roads were abundant. This is day one going from Middlebury towards Bristol. I don’t know why it looks like it’s 7:52pm because this is about 2 in the avo. More to the point, this particular ride featured a Chris Milliman-like 50′ish miles of dirt. “Rad” sells the ride very very short. It was awesome.

Waffles were available from Susan this morning, but I still went with the oatmeal. The left over waffles resulted in the perfect ride food. She had them wrapped like the perfect little ride treats with the blueberries secretly nestled inside. It was a very satisfying first bite when I gnoshed into this badboy.

Convenience stores are a token New England characteristic. Misspelling ICE is only part of the fun in Ripton, VT.

Roxbury Gap. Dirt. Steep. Very most excellent.

The final day I rode the legendary L-A-M-B ride. Aptly named since it criss-crosses the Green Mountains over four of the gnarliest gaps, Lincoln, Appalachian, Middlebury, and Brandon. In truth, I guess my ride was more LAB-M since that’s the order in which I rode. I want to swear with excitement and spike a football in celebration it was so good! But 6 hours later, I was pretty cooked so I had some corn on the cob instead. Yes, naturally it was freshly cooked, salted, and peppered at the local general store. Learning something from my roommate for the weekend, I also procured some ride beverage – a mini maple syrup.

Twist my arm, Tim and Peter. Yeah, I went golfing afterwards. It was pretty excellent since even if I was exhausted bordering on passing out; I hit a good dozen balls decently well, we didn’t crash nor flip nor flat the golf cart, no one was arrested, and I had my best score for the 14.5 holes we decided to play. That has never happened before when I hit the links.

Isn’t Vermont magic?

Therefore when the stars align and the intricate schedules of six very good friends overlap for one special Saturday in July, this not only marks a reason to celebrate, but it serves as excellent reason to go for what amounts to two massive bike rides… in one day. Naturally, a two-for-one is the picture of efficiency.

Or the 200 Not On 100, clearly. Dang, you know it’s a decently large day in the saddle when it doesn’t even fit on this map.

I won’t repeat myself, so the full song and dance (that is, the reason why this ride came about) can be found here. This ride is simply a ride. Getting out with friends, tackling a head-slappingly long route, throw some requisite dirt into the mix, precede that with a road trip followed by late night antics the night before, toss in some of New England’s most scenic and historic roads, and you’ve got yourself a soul-ride. Racing bikes for a career is truly incredible and I’m humbled and blessed to be in that company. Massive soul rides like this, however, are one of the primary reasons why I ride a bike.

The 200NotOn100 gained plenty of regional and then national recognition. The day is characterized by a whole slew of mini stories, which collectively surround this special Saturday building it into what it ultimately became. One of my favorite of these stories is that of a Kathy and her family of four who caught wind of the original 200 on 100 ride and rode it over the course of five days with her husband and two young boys. Staying apprised of our 200 on 100 ride, which became the 200 NOT on 100, this Saturday they flew their plane from Massachusetts, took aerial photos of noteworthy segments of the route, found a landing strip on the course and were out emphatically cheering with posters in hand(!), before it was wheels-up and they flew on to Portland to be part of the “unofficial welcome committee.” Another great story is Rich who found us right after the ride’s high point on the Kancamagus Highway and with a special gift bag delivery of NH maple syrup and Moat Mountain tall boys to help prevent the mid-ride crack. Again with two very young children in arms. I reckon the word is getting out!

Chomping a Fluffernutter, Ryan graciously accepts the maple&Moat gift bag. Thanks Rich.

While not a charity ride, it has enormous potential to go in that direction – as is, in addition to the t-shirts we’re selling, we passed around a hat at the wicked post-ride BBQ and collectively have generated close to $4,000, entirely for the Colorado Red Cross.

Community. That’s what the ride is all about. It’s the cycling community in Colorado to which so many of us are connected. Moreover, the sense of community last Saturday rivals anything I’ve experienced on two wheels. A dozen riders before the sun was even up in Burlington joined us rolling out of Burlington, while plenty of riders latched on for five minutes or fifty miles. The reception upon our arrival at Scratch Baking Co. was phenomenal, including my family, childhood neighbors, my best friend, his wife, and newborn son, the incredible community inherently built around Scratch, the Healthy Kids Happy Kids Me organization, folks I’ve known from my local bike shop for a dozen years, supporters, fans, and a whole bunch of others. Cycling is a community like no other.

Oh, another noteworthy addition to the day was watching Andy and Dave roll into Scratch more than three hours later. These two intrepidly set out with us at 6am from Burlington, were dropped before mile 50, but kept on truckin’ to arrive in Portland at 8pm. Incredible. And now a photo montage.

Some groggy eyes at 5:58am.

Good morning. ilovermont.

VT farm roads veiled in morning fog.

Only time we touched last year’s route all day.

Chandler tucks into the draft to ensure he can make the full 200 miles via scoot’.

Watching Tim drink maple syrup at the 1/2 way point to dig out of the bonk inspires the mega-sammy: speculoos, Fluff, and maple almond butter. White bread, naturally.

Maybe I’m gaining something of a reputation for Fluff? Nearing the top of Bear Notch.

Ryan ain’t hallucinating yet.

Support staff and the 3 riders, 200 Not On 100 complete!

Burgers, brats, beers, and plenty of this. Recovery food, my friends.

Oh right, these guys rolled in three hours later. Andy and Dave, you’re a couple of heroes!

Community. Cycling is community. Thank you. Thank you family, supporters, folks who made the signs on the side of the road, mid-ride delivery crew, our sincere “Friends” at Skratch, Scratch Baking Co., Strava, Allagash, Cutaway, and our friends from Maine to Colorado. Be safe, be well. Thank you.

Or so they say.

No one ever asks me how much I sleep. I do, however, receive a nearly equal smattering of questions regarding how much do I ride and what do I eat. Thanks to Strava I post a lot of my races and training rides, but on average only about 4-5 per week. Meanwhile, I use this blog and showcase the more noteworthy meals I eat. That gives an idea of what’s going in and what sort of energy I’m burning, but that obviously doesn’t paint the entire picture because I’ve never combined the two. Well wait no more my curiously analytical cycling friends, because I’m doing that exact thing right here right now! What follows is one of the most rudimentary food/hydration/fuel/training investigation you’ll ever see.

Specifically, I took a photo of nearly everything I ate today; also, photo or not, I logged everything I ate. This being iamtedking dot com, I have a story to two to add to the mix to keep it spicy. In fair warning, I don’t claim to be a nutritionist (…err, actually I do exactly that in my next column for Bicycling), but after years of being part of this professional athlete thing, I’m quite astute when it comes to estimating food sizes, portions, and corresponding nutritional value. For the sake of adding even slightly more legitimacy, I’ve also used FitDay‘s calorie tracker. There, the internet says it, so it’s gotta be true.

Today’s ride, which you see at the top, was a big one. It’s my last big training session before the Tour de France East, which this year is seven days of racing all throughout Poland and curiously is more accurately called the Tour of Poland.

Starting a day without coffee is just foolish. Note the particularly colorful bag of beans from Berti Caffe.

This roaster’y is located just 1km from my Lucca home and I ride by these guys all the time. One day the door was open and out of the corner of my eye as I zoomed by I saw the telltale cycling rainbow colors emblazoned on the back of their shop. I locked up the breaks, flipped a U-ie, ducked my head in the shop, and asked what the colors signified. When the kindly woman told me that her father is a cycling nut, I knew I had a new favorite local coffee roaster! Moreover – and remember this is a very Italian woman in a very Italian town – the woman asked me where I was from; I said New Hampshire to which she replied that NH’s finest Lake Winnipesaukie is one of her favorite places on earth. Wow, small world.

2 cups of black coffee (5 calories) down the hatch.

Again, big ride today means a big hearty breakfast.

I ate a small smattering of this fruit. It’s fresh cantaloupe, white peaches, and apricots. I only ate a few bites of this as I was preparing the rest of breakfast.

1/5 of the melon (37 calories), 1/4 peach (10), 1/2 apricot (9). Now back in the fridge for you!

From there it was breakfast time proper. Throwing an egg into oatmeal and whipping it up quickly gives it the most satisfying, custardy texture in addition to providing a nutritional boost from farm fresh eggs. You saw eww, I saw try it. So in this bowl of oatmeal we have water, oats (310 calories), an egg (60), three cherries (13), one dried fig (37), and three dried apricots (27). This being me, there is also a bit of New Hampshire maple syrup (105), some cinnamon and a dash of salt. In the background, you’ll also see a thingy of banana yogurt (150).

A short while later it was time to kit up and practice the art of bicycle riding. I met a friendly fruit-stand-man riding with Ben King two weeks ago as we rolled back into town from another legendary ride. It turns that he’s a huge cycling fan, being Italian he loves Liquigas, and I therefore wanted to bequeath him some wicked bright green and blue swag. So with a brand new team issue water bottle and cycling cap in hand, I rode 10 minutes to his corner of the globe. Note his right hand – he’s giddy as a school girl after her first kiss in this photo with his new stuff.

It’s around about this time that I should point out that I love figs. Truly I feel sorry for anyone out there who has never had the opportunity to bite into a fresh fig. And by fresh I mean you literally have a mere 12 hour window when it goes from exquisite to rotten. It is divine! (One fig eaten on the spot, 37 calories.)

I was about to ride bid him farewell and ride away when he hollered something, scurried into his barn, grabbed a bunch of fruit and handed it over. I had to laugh since it was literally a handful of fruit. Actually it was two handfuls. First, I received more than is in this photo. He handed me three massive peaches and six of those mini pears. Secondly, no, I did not eat everything in this photo. I pocketed all of it in a show of my grateful thanks, but ended up having to toss what I didn’t eat.

I had somewhere between 5 to 5.5 hours on the training program today with a handful of relatively short bursting intervals. It was hot today too. As we say at home “H-O-double-T, hot!” As you’ll see in the SRM file below, the average temp was 31.5C (88F), but that includes a relatively cool morning. The brunt of the ride was in the 37-40C range (98-104F) with a max of 45C (113F) in one particular valley that radiates heat on a road right next to it’s bone-day river bed. That’s like riding into a hairdryer.

I mention all that because I drink a frigging ton on days like today. Allen Lim is a friend of mine and he knows a thing or two about hydration. I value his opinion and know that staying ahead of dehydration is enormously important especially on longer days like today. At 6’2″ I’m tall and therefore have a lot of surface area to pour sweat. During the harder parts of the the training intervals, in the hotter sections of the ride, I don’t think it’s humanly possible to sweat any more than I was – my flipping calves were sweating at those times.

Sorry to be gross, if you find sweat nasty. My point is that in the course of these 5.38333 hours, I drank at any and every opportunity. Thankfully all throughout Italy – and lots of European for that matter – there are these magical water springs. They’re both in the middle of nowhere like the top of mountain passes or right in the middle of small downtown squares. With the help of a relatively low-calorie/high-electrolyte hydration formula, I reckon that I drank 12 bottles (250 calories).

Over the course of my career I’ve eaten more race food than I care to even picture, so given the option of real food or race food, I choose the former. In general in the real food category, I tend towards sweet over salty. So in today’s hundred-plus mile ride, I ate the following:

I know I’ve mentioned il Re del Cappuccino – the aptly named King of Cappuccino – who’s been serving capp’s for more than 60 years. The man is a legend. Now that I have a signed jersey decorating their shop, I’m basked with their exemplary service. Which is the same as their standard service, since they’re always hospitable. Cappuccino (200 calories) and Nutella laden baked good (250) after 75 minutes is precisely the fuel I want for the rest of the day.

Next, top left: those aaaaaamazing honey waffles, which cost like $2 apiece in America, but are like $0.25 in Belgium. I bagged up and had five of those gems (670 calories).
Bottom: every cafe in Italy has biscotti. Mind you, these are Italian biscotti and not SUPERsized American portions, so they’re about the size of your pinkie. A half dozen of those spread out over the day is about 500 calories.

Oh and remember those peaches and mini pears swimming in my jersey pocket from farm stand man? I ate two peaches (76) and two mini pears (40).

By now you’re saying, “Ted, you ate like a horse.” To which I reply, yes, but look at the SRM file and you’ll see that I burned through a hearty 5,067 calories… and that’s just in the 5:23 ride time, let alone my basal metabolic rate which is running hot so I’m zipping through another ~2,000 calories over the course of the day.

…Good grief, this is a lot of work rehashing everything I ate and it’s not even lunch time. Okay (breathe breathe), let’s keep going.

Famished and thirsty, I got home from my ride and chugged some water and a fairly light recovery drink (150). I also ate a fig- yes, another one (37).

Shower time and 4pm lunch time followed. I made the most amazing risotto that I’ve ever made – admittedly, it’s the first risotto I’ve ever made – the night before and I had ample leftovers. This beauty is a zucca (basically squash/zucchini) and onion risotto (500 calories), topped on a bed of raw arugula (10), three luscious Italian tomatoes (35), a beet and a half (50), all drizzled with truffle balsamic glaze (10). To the left is a rice cracker (15) schmeared with homemade sun-dried tomato hummus (80)… ’cause that’s what I do.

It was nearly time for another fig, but I thought I would take a nap instead. ZZZzzzZZZzzzzzzz Nap: over. Now it’s time to tackle some errands in town, but I decided that I had a hankerin’ for some chocolate peanut butter, which conveniently I had in the form of Dark Chocolate Dreams from Peanut Butter & Co. I had a modest spoonful (170) atop another rice cracker (15). It would likely behoove you to do the same or perhaps try their Mighty Maple.

I did some reading before dinner and they say that your brain consumes a lot of calories when deep in thought. I don’t have the SRM file for this specific reading interval, but I reckon I burned another 5,000 calories by finishing up my latest book… The Hunger Games, curiously enough. Here’s my five-cent book review: an interesting read, but I don’t see what all the hype is about. Yes, it’s very engrossing and despite the post-apocalyptic nature of the plot, the emotions of the book are still something with which we can relate. But without giving away too much, when there are human-meets-wolf creatures sprinting around on their hind legs with 4″ razor sharp claws attacking the protagonists, WTF?! I don’t like science fiction. I’d be hard pressed to read the second of this series.

There, now you owe me a nickel.

Dinner time and I wanted to reward myself for a hard day’s work without laboring in the kitchen. If you’ve ever had pizza in Italy, you know that each person order one pizza. It’s kind of like how in America, if you go to Mexican food, one person is going to order one burrito. Are we now clear with the 1:1 ratio? Good, let’s continue. The pizza is typically 12″ in diameter, incredibly thin with a basic flour/yeast/salt/water crust, and most certainly is not the oil injected, 2″ tall pizzas we’re accustomed to in America. A few toppings decorate the pizzapie and voila, you’ve got yourself dinner. All for 6 euro.

Prosciutto cotto, arugula, tomato pizza (1,000) on a very colorful yet camouflaged plate. A crisp, fruit-foward (whatever that means) glass of Austrian white wine (125) gifted to me by our friend Timmy Duggan perfectly accentuated this entree on a still stifling evening.

And yes, that’s my iamnottedking-stickered wallet.

It’s nearly dinner time, but not first without another pair of figs (74). What?! I issued the warning earlier, I love figs. Succulent, sweet, and literally bursting with flavor, it’s kind of like your food giving you a high five when you take a bite.

Summary:

So what have we learned? Who knows. Like I said, this isn’t a normal example. This was obviously a day of heavy training, so I’m going to ride hard and eat a lot to fuel the fire. On an easy day I eat like a ballerina and crush some salad. So since there isn’t anything more to really do, let’s just summarize.

– By my calculation, I consumed 5,082 calories. All of which were delicious, especially the risotto and the honey waffles
– Calories expended on the ride: 5,067.69
– Ride time: 5:23 and change
– Ride distance: 172.5km (107 miles)
– Average power: a massive 261 watts

Peace out nerds.

After last week’s brief four day venture to the northern reaches of Italy, I swung through home in Lucca, enjoyed Taco-Tuesday(-on-Friday) with some friends, thereby bringing arguably the best Mexican food to Europe before continuing south to Chianti. The amazing part of riding down here is that virtually every time you go over a rise, around a corner, look over a wall, or down a city block it’s like catching a glimpse of a postcard. This place is absolutely incredible.

Have I mentioned inGamba Tours? Yes, I have. And in other news, they’re located right there –>

I decided to pay them a visit as one of their “pros in residence” in order to continue my cycling escape and soak in the good life, all the while training hard and not racing the Tour. Today I had salad. And it was delicious. Here’s a fairly standard day from behind the camera lens (and in fairness, this is an amalgamation of two days).

Lots of vineyards.

A road.

A breathtaking view that just isn’t served justice in this photo. Plus a fence.

It’s wine o’clock somewhere. In this case, it’s about that time in Panzano.

I didn’t eat here. But I liked the photo.

Dario Cecchini‘s macelleria and restaurant are worth the visit. Very un-salad like.

Sunday traffic. Estimated combined age of this duo: 197 years.

You ever see the Palio? It’s kind of a big (absolutely ginormous!) deal in Siena. I stumbled upon it yesterday.

Greenery.

A fountain. I think this one is called The Lion King.

Dusk.

Last night was a two’fer: a local town BBQ dinner plus Italy versus Spain in the EuroCup finals. Italy got trounced, but it was amazing to see the enthusiasm and patriotism. The entire room of 100 stood and sang the national anthem. Emphatically. Plus yelled, kicked, screamed, and cheered at every opportunity. Go sports!

But like I said, Italy lost. And they like their Chianti Classico in this region.

Goodnight.

Today was a proper day of bicycle riding. Looked something like this.

We can all agree that nothings says “Tour de France” like bicycle riding around Belgium for three days and then migrating west to France. I’m therefore going to stay true to myself and hold out on my inaugural Tour de France by waiting until we stick exclusively to France – dabbling in other European countries obviously sullies the authentic Tour experience. (For those of you reading along and completely confused, this year’s Grand Bouche begins in Liege, Belgium before entering France for the rest of the three week race.)

That proclamation of holding out is of course is of course drenched in sarcasm. To be honest, I get sick to my stomach thinking that I won’t be there this year. To call the first half of my 2012 season successful is a gnarly understatement. My fitness is there, my motivation is sky high, and in the past not-quite-six-months I’ve been integrally involved with fifteen wins for Liquigas-Cannondale. Geeze, I don’t think I was involved with fifteen wins in all of 2011. I won’t stew on it any longer, however. I can’t thank you enough for the enormous show of support – especially over the past month – to have me lining up for my first Tour. The messages, the tweets, the emails, the calls, the very entertaining #KingfortheTour, and other signs of support mean a lot to me. More than you can imagine. It just makes me that much hungrier for that first Tour whenever that happens.

Moving on.

In order to clear my head, continue exploring the globe, while still staying true to my job and therefore training extensively I recently made my way from my home in Tuscany up to the Dolomites in north eastern Italy.

Surrounded by some of the biggest, awesomest mountains I’ve ever seen, I once again rejoined my BFF Timmy Duggan who is also up in this neck of the woods soaking up the same Dolomite excellence.

I raced the Giro di Italia in both 2009 and 2010. What’s tattooed in my mind more than anything is the Dolomites. My words here won’t do justice to just how spectacular they are, so I won’t even bother. Click on that panoramic photo above and you’ll get a sliver of our surroundings from high atop Timmy’s porch.

Jumping headlong into things, here’s my first ride. I’m only up here for a few days, so rather than lamely wasting time acclimatizing simply for my departure, I went for a bike ride.

My memory is sometimes sieve-like. So speaking of those 2009 and 2010 Giri d’Italia (the plural of Giro is Giri, not Giros),  I apparently wanted to put the painful specifics out of my mind – that is to say, I raced up the very access road to my hotel, but I didn’t recognize it whatsoever until I bothered to check the Giro route map. Oops. Namely, Stage 5 to Alpe di Suisse. Here is that particular Strava segment, on which I conveniently now have the KOM. In your face, whoever actually won that stage!

Anyway, that first ride was long and arduous and stunning and calorific. So Timmy and I took a moment to rest our weary souls atop some random mountain pass, I think that’s Passo Valparola.

Obviously well fueled, that initial big day was then followed by another big day. Given my thorough one day of acclimatization, I felt like a million and a half bucks the next day. Here she is:

Clearly, another good’n’.

That’s all I got for now. Cycling is a sport of ups and downs, both literal and figurative. Sure, I’d like to be racing the Tour de France in two days, but that’s now out of my control. Putting in the time and effort to get up here to the Dolomites, seeing and training with my very good friend Timmy, and putting in the hours on the bike are a phenomenal alternative. I am lucky and I know it.

I said that’s all, but actually here’s one more panoramic picture for your viewing pleasure. Here I am high atop Passo Sella looking east towards, umm, well towards whatever is east of Passo Sella, which in this case appears to be even more mountains. Again, click on the image for an even better view.

“Aaaaaand go!”

…instead we have man eating craters that rival the Grand Canyon that span the middle of the everyday thoroughfares.

My post-Paris-Roubaix/pre-Tour of California self titled Tour of New England is rapidly coming to a close, as I’m off to California tomorrow. It’s a blast for me to have family and friends all throughout the northeast because between weddings, baseball games, bachelor parties, and simply traveling for the sake of seeing close friends whom I would not otherwise see, I’ve been blessed to tackle some riding across the finest section of America – even if that means occasionally catching air at 70kph on a screaming downhill when I hit a frost heave and jet over it’s frightening crevasse.

One of my recent adventures took me into the White Mountains. I started the day in the basking sun of home down south, nearly two hours’ drive from my riding point. Down yonder it was warm and pleasant and I was definitely not expecting anything but a pristine day. So when I stepped out the car and saw my breath I was less than psyched. But I soldiered on and soon warmed up a bit, until I reached the top of the Kanc’ at which point it was snowing on me and I was reaaally unprepared and freezing, I therefore decided that a rapid descent into Lincoln was in order. A $0.99 coffee complete with a splattering of instant cappuccino warmed my soul while a $5 pair of gas station gloves warmed my fingers.

What’s topped even that is that I then began another, separate five-day journey that saw me in the Upper Valley of NH and VT for a pair of days, followed by a blustery day of riding in Burlington, and then off to the most northern and remote town in all of New Hampshire called Pittsburg (nope, no -h at the end). When you’re in Pittsburg, NH you may as well be on the moon except that we still Live, Free, or Die here in the great Granite State. Despite now being in the midst of New England’s well documented turbulent spring weather, I was still not anticipating snow… or maybe I was just not appreciating snow. So when it dumped snow in downright blizzard-like fashion for 18 straight hours, and I woke up Saturday morning to a blank white scene, I was extremely pleased that I still had those $5 gas station gloves safely stored in my car. I doubled up the riding gloves that day and my toasty warm and extremely stylish fingers were all the happier for it.

If you’re curious what the nether reaches of New Hampshire look like, when you haven’t seen a car in hours and there are far more “Brake For Moose” signs than there are moose, then you know you’re practically in Canada, eh, then let this photo above appease you. To one direction you look back south at New Hampshire and you see this wonderfully English and French signage. Bienevue!

And in the other direction you’ll see the fiercely impenetrable and vastly underused New Hampshire–Canadian border patrol.

Which, believe it or not, on the other side of these buildings looks curiously like northern New Hampshire.

Oh, I was concerned that I wasn’t going to see any moose on this adventure to the great white north. On my big ride in Pittsburg I saw one hedgehog or lemur or ferret or something sprint across the road. That was exciting, but I really wanted a moose – the forest’s most awkwardly tall and gangly animal. Then after feeling defeated upon leaving Pittsburg early Sunday morning, I was about an hour south on my way to show Tim a thing or two about how to ride a bike, I saw my elusive moose walking across the road.

No photo because it was too awesome.

And if you’ve made it this far into the post, you deserve something actually worth reading. Please let THIS site satisfy your viewing pleasure.

It was a year ago last week that I returned home from a European spring racing campaign for a little American decompressing RnR before Tour of California and the second half of the year. To put it mildly, it was a challenging spring where I was trying to meddle some lemonade out of tendonitis plagued lemons. In that situation, half the battle is putting on a smile and telling everyone that everything is peachy and that tendonitis and time will heal itself. The other half is convincing yourself that’s the truth.

Planned all through the spring by my good friend and photog to the stars Chris Milliman, I had the perfect slice of welcome home goodness in the form of UVEpic – a hundred mile group ride of which more than 70% is dirt(!) with friends, friends of friends, and “that fast dude with hairy legs from across the state”. The email invitation which begins small, slowly seeps out to riders worthy of an epic with probably 50 or 60 people ultimately get the nod of approval. If the weather is perfect probably a third of those will attend because of family commitments, conflicting race schedules, travel to the nether reaches of New England, and whatever other lame excuse people can spew out. If the weather is junk, however, then maaaaybe ten neoprene and Gore-Tex clad idiot cyclists will show. With sun and temperatures in the 60s all week leading up to last year’s UVEpic, we woke up on ride day to a sloppy sheet of white on the entire Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont in the form of frigid April snow. Crud. We still rode, but our century turned into about fifteen treacherous miles until safety and good sense prevailed when we ended up at the pub. Un-crud.

Fast-forward one year to this past weekend and things are peachy. They’re downright awesome in fact! I’ve had a very successful start of 2012, factoring into wins at Tour of San Luis way back in Argentina in January, followed by wins in Italian races to follow in February, then an excellent Classics run. Riding for a guy like Peter Sagan makes it easier to have such an “excellent” cap to the spring, but lest we forget that it’s riders like me that help make him look so fast and savvy on a bike. You’re welcome Peter.

A few iterations of the UVEpic have spun off over the past year so that we’re now onto version 6.0. Chris meticulously studies the countless roads, dirt roads, fire-roads, and strade marroni (brown roads, as opposed to stradi bianchi) that spider web all throughout the Hanover area. As a friend on the ride yesterday said, “I’ve lived here for ten years and I’m still finding incredible new roads all around me.” Beat that Boulder. Zing.

I had the distinctive and fortuitous pleasure of being back in America when version 6.0 was rolling out this year. Making it to the start was less of a To-Do and more of a Must-Do when I once again found myself home after the European spring classics and before Tour of California. The only stick thrown in the spokes was the 60s, 70s and sun all the week leading up to the UVEpic-6.0 and the contrasting angry lightning bolts and massive rain drop icons on the weather forecast icons. But gosh darn it, when you’re going to ride an epic, you may as well make it an EPIC.

To take the snap out of my step, I rode 99 miles (with just 1% of it on dirt) the day before with the coincidental pleasure of seeing the Dartmouth collegiate bike race with my beloved Eastern Collegiate Cycling Conference. I got my start in the sport with collegiate cycling and I shed a tear with nostalgia, seeing the abundant mismatched kit intertwined with the well dressed folk sporting more carbon wheels than were raced in my day, the full white skinsuit with TUFTS hand inscribed on the back, and the jorts (jean shorts) competition taking place post race. UVM won that competition, but they weren’t even trying. (Seriously, collegiate cycling is incredible. I donate a lot of my gently used clothing and equipment to local colleges and those poor, leg shaving co-eds need all the help they can get. You should contact your local college and do the same. Or go marshal a race or coach a team.)

Here’s that 1% of dirt on Saturday’s ride.

I’m honestly having trouble producing the words to describe how awesome Sunday’s UVEpic was. With the lowest point coming early in the form of Chris’s tubulars feeling spitefully jealous by just how bright his shoe covers were and therefore spouting out latex with a messy, foamy cloud, the rest of the ride was the tops.

We had seven hours budgeted from start to finish – which I figured was a ridiculous over estimate – and it turned out to be a hair short. With short punchy climbs the order of the day, more often than not tipping over the 20% gradient line, we quickly and easily (…or not so easily) notched more than 3,500 meters of climbing. By comparison, Liege-Bastogne-Liege which I’ve raced twice and which also took place yesterday is about 50% longer than our ride and has a small sliver more climbing. Again, zing… to the legs.

Jersey pockets are accommodating, but more than seven hours of tough riding requires more fuel than you can cram into a jersey pocket. Moreover, one of the best parts of riding these far reaches of New England are the village center stores, selling anything from red pickled eggs in a three gallon jug (which we avoided) to maple whoopies pies (which I purchased the last one) to the ahem… “white trash mocha cappuccinos” – a heavenly mix of 1/2 coffee and 1/2 instant $0.99 impossibly sweet hot chocolate. These steamy beverages served exclusivity in environmentally hateful containers compliment a mid-ride whoopie pie on a chilly, dank spring day perfectly.

Those aforementioned angry lightning bolts and massive rain drop icons in the weather forecast? We apparently had a ginormous umbrella over our ride the entire days because the few miles of pavement were virtually bone dry, the 70+ miles of dirt were matted down perfectly by rain the night before, and I could count all the mud puddles I saw the entire day on one hand. What’s more, within ten minutes of putting my bike in the car and swiftly shuttling south for a family dinner, the skies opened up and I drove through one of those it-cannot-possibly-rain-any-harder deluges.

I pin on a number and race because I love racing my bike. But rides like yesterday, UVEpic 6.0, one of the top 3 bike rides in my life? THAT is why I ride a bike. Thank you Chris and everyone else who helped make it awesome. I already know that UVEpic 7.0 is in the works and I can’t wait.

Here it is: