The day before, as if to prove both Vega’s and Simms’s points, King had invited me back to the team hotel after the stage finish. He emerged from his room freshly showered and wearing a black Cervélo polo shirt and blue jeans. A lanky six feet, two inches tall, King stands out a bit in professional cycling; with a few exceptions, most riders are shorter than he is. But at 175 pounds, he has the slender physique necessary for the sport. When told that he looks really slim, he chuckled, offered thanks, and said, half-jokingly, that the best compliment that you can pay to a cyclist is to tell him that he looks emaciated.

“There are many cyclists who are so strict about their training regimen, what they eat, and they get angry when it doesn’t go as planned,” he said. “I feel like I can roll with the punches a bit more than most.”

Part of his adaptability, he said, is due to his time at Middlebury. When he stepped up his game in the spring of 2005, the year he made it onto the U.S. National U-23 squad, he was racing almost every weekend from March to May. At the same time, he was taking five classes and trying to finish his economics major. He even took his finals early that year so he could get to Europe and train. His final semester was more of the same.

“He had a trainer [machine] set up in his Atwater suite, and he would ride while reading an econ book,” says Spencer Paxson ’07.

When training in Vermont, the unforgiving winter climate also provided a challenge, but King made it a weekly priority to get outside and onto the main roads, occasionally pulling on a full neoprene suit to brave the elements.

“Now I know what bad weather is, and I know I can get through it,” he says. It’s also the dues he’s paid as an up-and-comer in the U.S., from driving in the cramped Team Bissell vans throughout California with his brother to the accidents he’s suffered—the most harrowing as a U-23 National Team rider in the 2005 Tour of Georgia, when a race vehicle clipped his bike on a descent. He shattered his helmet but walked away and was on the bike again later that summer.

The experience of his father, Ted Sr., a surgeon and accomplished amateur sailor, who suffered a stroke six years ago, has given him perspective as well. “My dad’s stroke was very unexpected—he was fit, relatively young,” King says. “My attitude has changed a bit in terms of being less happy-go-lucky. In the back of my head I’m saying, ‘When is this opportunity ever going to come again?’”

King’s off-bike passions also set him apart from fellow pros. Before races, he’ll down a cup of coffee and focus on finishing a daily crossword puzzle. And he crafts blog entries for his own Web site (recent hot topics: the virtues of maple syrup peanut butter, hatred for his wretched BlackBerry Storm Smartphone) and has contributed in-race thoughts for the pro-cycling site VeloNews.com.

He’s prolific on Twitter, a favorite method of communication among cyclists. In fact, after that appearance on Armstrong’s back-of-the-bus videocast at the Giro—and a subsequent Tweet about it by Armstrong—King’s followers increased from 300 to over 3,000.

He’s also a budding foodie, taking camera-phone pictures of meals on the road and posting them to his blog or Twitter feed whenever possible. And on trips back to his parents’ house in New Hampshire, he’ll fire up the oven and experiment with different types of baked goods—biscotti, cookies, breads.

“Teddy has told us that he’s interested in getting into the food business one day,” says his father. “It’s smart to be forward thinking. For now, he’s laying the groundwork.”

However, in Vienna, on the last day of the tour, King is focused on padding his cycling résumé. The stage concludes with 10 laps around the inner ring road of the capital, with the finish underneath the Burgtheater, a magnificent state theater that was reconstructed in the early 1950s, after being leveled in World War II.

With about four laps to go, Ted turns to Canadian Svein Tuft, a rider on the American-based Garmin-Slipstream team.

“You want to make a move?” he asks.

Not much more needs to be said. Along with a rider from the French team, Milram, the three crank the pedals and start a mad dash away from the peloton. But with about half a lap to go, the field catches up and Ted is swallowed back into the pack. He ends up finishing the Tour 74th overall.

A few hours later, King emerges from the team bus, munching on a baguette wrapped in foil and greeting some U.S. fans, who have come to get his autograph. He seems satisfied with the overall result, despite the failed attempt at a stage win. “European racing is an entirely different sport from American,” he had told me earlier in the week. “The first year is all about learning the ropes and seeing if you can hack it.”

So far he’s done just that, adapting quickly to the harder, longer, and faster pace of Old World cycling. Since the Tour of Austria concluded in early July, he’s raced in two more stage races and two single-day events. His best result came in Spain in August’s Vuelta a Burgos, when he picked up the blue jersey for best sprinter (riders collect points for the jersey at intervals along the course) after the race’s second stage.

He’s adjusting to the European lifestyle, too. He lives in the Catalonian town of Girona, Spain, where many established American cyclists like George Hincapie, Christian Vande Velde, and Armstrong have homes. Living in Girona is improving his racing cred, his form (there are tough mountain rides a few miles away), and his Spanish, which his Cervélo teammates appreciate.

“He will speak Spanish like a real Spaniard very soon,” says Sans Vega, who also lives in Girona. “Our six Spanish riders only talk to him in [that language].”

But while King is pleased with his progress on and off the bike this year, don’t ask him now if he’s going to race in the 2010 Tour de France. “That’s the question that will drive you nuts,” he says. “Because that’s what people always think of. What I say is, ‘OK, you play soccer. When are you going to play in the World Cup?’ It’s a stepping-stone process.”

Still, if he continues to proceed at this rate, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him talking with Armstrong on the Champs-Elysées next year.

Jon Brand ’05 is a writer in Washington, DC.

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