Hey everybody, Ted King here with another episode of King of the Ride podcast.

It is not the first time that I've said the world is our recording studio.

This conversation took place on the eve of Mid-South.

In particular, it was a short window that we had carved out just before the pre-race meeting,

which to anyone who has experienced the pre-race meeting at Mid-South knows it's much more of a

concert than a meeting, thanks to the legend that is Bobby Wintel.

The sun was setting, the shake-out ride with Saram was complete, the numbers were pinned on

bikes, the overall busyness of the event was at a

column for this brief half hour that we carved out. So I was psyched to pick the brain of my former

colleague from the world tour, Nicholas Roach. Nico is our guest today. Speaking of that

world is our studio anecdote, as we were roaming downtown stillwatered the two of us in search of a quiet spot to record this conversation.

We did happen to overtake a random van's campsite where two chairs were quietly set out.

So do you fine chair-owning folks who stumbled upon our conversation?

Thank you very much.

An incredibly noteworthy career, Nico was a professional road racer from 2005 all the way through

2021. Folks, I finished two of the four grand tours that I raced. Niko finished of the 24 grand tours he've raced.

Twice finishing in the top 10 general classification at the Vuelta.

There's also the staggering number of 43 times finishing in the top tens on Vuelta stages.

This Irishman is a two-time national champion.

A very recent retiree, like I said, 2021 from the World Tour,

where his schedule only now has seemingly kicked into high gear.

He's racing an absurdly busy gravel calendar with something like six or seven trips to North America alone from his home base in Europe.

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