A tribute to Ted King MBE 1928-2026
Ted King sadly passed away at the end of February at the age of 97. Together with his late first wife, Sheila, Ted gave a lifetime of service to the CTC, now Cycling UK, first with Beds DA and then Bristol DA. He also rode with the Icknield Road Club, the Tandem Club, the Rough Stuff Fellowship, the Chippenham Wheelers and the VTTA West Group.
Remembered for his passion for cycling and his willingness to be involved at every level, Ted served on the CTC council for many years and as President between 1990 and 1996. He was proud to be awarded a CTC Certificate of Merit and in 2002 an MBE for services to cycling.
Ted was brought up in Luton, where his early love of aeroplanes and membership of the local model aircraft club turned into an apprenticeship at the Percival Aircraft Company. He worked there until 1966 when the Luton office closed and he moved to Filton, Bristol, to work for BAC.
While there he worked as a draughtsman and later as head of the full-scale layout drawing office on a number of planes including the A320 Airbus and the iconic Concord.
Ted met Sheila while cycling with a friend in 1952. They married in 1954 and brought three children, Bob, Heather and Val, into the cycling world. Each child began life in a sidecar before moving onto a seat on the back of a parent’s bike, a tandem and finally their own bikes.
Ted’s favourite combination was one tandem with Sheila and Bob on board and a second tandem with Heather on board and baby Val in an attached sidecar. Sundays saw the whole family cycling with the club and holidays were spent youth hostelling in various places around Britain.
Ted was also a great fan of off-road cycling and was a keen member of the Rough Stuff Fellowship. His children have memories of some challenging rides involving wading across rivers in flood because “It says it’s a ford on the map,” and lifting heavily loaded and muddy bikes (and sometimes a tandem!) over locked gates and barbed wire because “It’s a bridle way…” (and however difficult we will use it!).
While those years with a young family were spent cycle touring, when Ted was 50 and his family took up less of his time, he returned to an earlier love of time trialling. He had discovered this as a young man in the early 1950s with the Icknield Road Club (remembered by fellow riders Peter Tasker and John Lee).
In 1978, on joining the Chippenham and District Wheelers and the VTTA West group, he was mildly surprised by his success at time trialling without apparently doing any training. His experience with committee proceedings and long service to cycling led him to becoming President of the latter in 1999.
Always keen to encourage young people into cycling, he was involved with training children for Cycling Proficiency awards and youngsters in cycling expeditions for the Duke of Edinburgh awards.
As a life member of the CTC Ted has a huge list of achievements at all levels of cycling and organisation. He was a true clubman who joined the famous Birthday Rides every year and was always involved in the BCTC either as organiser or rider.
On his retirement, as well as working as CTC President, he found time to become involved in local village events including the short mat bowls club and musical theatre group (where he is remembered for being a particularly convincing ‘drunken sailor’!). His experience and diplomatic skills led to him being a valued member of their committees and life president of the latter.
After the sad death from cancer of his cycling wife Sheila in 2007, Ted was lucky enough to find another partner, Rosemary, whom he married in 2012; they had many happy years together. He was still cycling at the age of 90 and, although no longer confident to ride on the road, used his exercise bike right up until the end of 2025. Truly a life well lived.