Hey all, welcome back. I am Ted King, and this is the 117th episode of King of the Ride podcast.

Here we are on the King family late summer, early fall, two-month road trip.

We have been tallying the miles all across the west, ticking off events in Montana, Utah,

Colorado. We just wrapped up the third of this year's three Ted's excellent adventure rides. That was

this past weekend with the very good folks of Renee Harris out of Seattle, Washington. That ride was the

bike packing event that I spearheaded at the start of the year,

with three events all across the country all throughout the year,

and this edition took place in the Cascade Mountains.

Furthermore, it was on this lengthy trip that we swung through Western Colorado

for a mountain bike extravaganza in the likes of Crested Butte,

Gunnison, Telluride, which is all to say that it was on this trip that we had the privilege

to settle down for a bit at Dave Ween's house, to spread out, to do some laundry, to dig a shower

indoors as opposed to inside of a van. And it's where we had this

conversation. This was just on the tail end of Keegan's smashing record-breaking victory at

Leadville, so given that Dave is the six-time Leadville champion, among other star-studded

accolades, it was really fun to talk shop all across the spectrum of shop these days,

which includes some fascinating stories of early mountain biking, how big mountain skiing fits into the

puzzle, the wave of Europeans coming over and taking over the sport in the direction of mountain

biking for a while, how family life works his way into his career and what Dave is up to now as the executive

director of Imba, the International Mountain Bicycling Association.

Dave, you will notice, is a terrific storyteller, and this made for an educational, very

entertaining conversation.

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