Ted King Wins Race Around Rwanda
The ‘King of Gravel’ has added the Race Around Rwanda to his long list of trophies. Best known for his strength in North American one-day gravel races like the Unbound 200, Ted likes to get outside his comfort zone—this time with a self-supported bikepacking race over 1,000 km (620 miles), with no less than 17,000 m (56,000 ft) of climbing—in East Africa. This year’s edition of the race saw Kenyan celebrities—like last year’s winner Vincent Chege—line up with pro gravel racers—Laurens ten Dam, Thomas Dekker and Ted King—as well as bikepackers from around world.

It was an exciting race. Laurens ten Dam, a regular on the podium of Unbound 200, who also finished third in last year’s Tour Divide, pushed the pace during the first day. When most of the race leaders decided to sleep during the first night, one racer continued into the darkness. On Day 2, the new race leader was staying ahead of the others—until he was disqualified for receiving ‘help’ from a motorcyclist!
Ted opened up a sizeable gap on the field when he blitzed the notoriously rough descent in the Nyungwe Rainforest in just 3 hours, hotly pursued by Tomas Rongen, an amateur ultra-racer who had spent several months in Rwanda to acclimatize, 25 minutes behind. Laurens ten Dam lost 45 minutes during that section, but soon caught up to Tomas again. Laurens’ race came to an abrupt end when his wheel got stuck in a gap as the course rejoined a concrete highway. He went over the bars and broke his wheel. Fortunately, he wasn’t badly hurt.

On the relentlessly hilly terrain, Ted soon opened up an ever-growing gap over Tomas. Having experienced the challenges of riding at night in Rwanda, Ted wisely took some rest during the last night, leaving the last checkpoint still solidly in the lead. He rode into Kigali to a triumphant finish after about 56:50 hours on the road.

Ted told us after the finish of the race: “It’s easy to be mislead by some of the Race Around Rwanda’s stats. It’s labeled 65% paved across its 1,000 km distance, and I saw a few people in the 5 a.m. group roll-out who got lured into thinking that a narrow gravel tire was the right move. I was running 48 mm-wide Oracle Ridges with Endurance casings, and they were perfect. They’re speedy across the pavement, but so confidence-inspiring on the bone-jarring off-road stuff. Checkpoint two was preceded by a super foul, muddy section. It was a combination of slick mud and peanut butter. The worst of all worlds. I’m told I was the only rider not to go down there. Those big knobs did their job ejecting the mud and gripping tenaciously, keeping me upright. So it was just my bike and my back that got filthy, but I didn’t take a mudbath! In fact, where many riders suffered from punctures or worse, my tires were flawless.”

All we can add is: Congratulations, Ted! Well done!
Photo credits: Manu Cattrysse (Photos 2, 3); Ted King (all others)