Todd Key Finds Global Adventures In Memorable World Cup Trips

A world cup trip to Australia in January turned into yet another adventure for world-traveling Para-cyclist Todd Key.

He stayed in the guest room of an Australian family’s house not far from the beach in Adelaide.

He walked the family’s dog to the beach every day.

He gathered with the family’s grandkids, their friends and even their parents to share real-life tales of Para-cycling and demonstrate riding his bike with one real leg and one prosthetic leg.

Oh, and Key had a pair of fifth-place finishes in the time trial and road race MC1 in the first world cup road competition of the year in Adelaide.

“Australia is amazing,” said Key, a former resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado who began cycling at the age of 53 and now self-funds his trips to world cup races. “Of all the places I’ve been, it’s possibly the most amazing place I’ve ever been.”

Key, who will celebrate his 63rd birthday March 17, stayed with the family for 10 days after the world cup event was over. He had never been to the country before.

“You’d walk 50 feet and be on the most perfect beach,” he said. “Unbelievable. Just always people running up and down, walking up and down, riding up and down. So amazing.”

Just days after the world cup event ended, Key found himself riding alongside professional riders competing in the Santos Tour Down Under, which was the season-opening race in the UCI WorldTour. Key, wearing Team USA gear, pulled onto a dirt path that was right beside the paved Down Under course and, for a few seconds, was right there with them. TV cameras in helicopters flying overhead captured the moment.

“I just jumped in,” Key said. “There was a bike path that was along the stretch of the coast where the pros were. So, yeah, I just jumped in.”

These are the kinds of biking adventures that hooked Key when he took part in his first world cup race in 2014 in Italy.

“The big motivation was, when I showed up in Europe for my first world cup, I was sitting at the start line with 15 guys with one leg,” said Key, who lost the use of his right hand after an accident as a child, and later lost his right leg after being diagnosed with cancer. “I had spent years to figure out how to create my setup on my bike. And I’m sitting here, and there’s like 15 guys and they all have virtually the exact same thing, all done completely differently.

“That first race was just life changing,” added Key. “I was, ‘Wow, this is amazing, I want to do this.’”

Key, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, kept his word and Europe is virtually a second cycling home now.

“I’ve managed to become good friends with a bunch of the European people,” he said. “Now that I’ve been doing it 10 years, I recently discovered that I’m kind of a legend in the sport. I’m the hidden legend that no one talks about, but everybody in the community knows who I am.

“I find it hilarious when I’m riding in the events,” Key added, laughing, “people are just yelling my name.”

Key’s humorous and outgoing personality led to groups of Australians gathering to listen to his talks and cycling demonstrations in Adelaide, and the same happens in Europe. His world cup trips are filled with racing, catching up with friends and visiting schools to talk to kids.

“When I’m in Europe, I go to all of the schools that I have time for when I’m there racing,” he said. “Wherever I am, when I’m riding, anytime I pass a school, I just go in and show them and tell them who I am.”

Key’s cycling adventures began in 2010 when he started to compete in the Phoenix area. By 2013, he entered his first national race, a selection event.

“I didn’t know much about racing,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about it.”

Key accepted an invitation to go to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There, he met Chris Murphy, who was in the midst of a career that would include two trips to the Paralympic Games and nine medals from the world championships.

“Between the two of us, we kind of worked together to figure things out,” Key said. “He was more knowledgeable than I was, so he was a lot of help.”

Key won his first world championships medal, a bronze, in a track time trial in 2017. He has competed in eight world championship events — four each in road and track.

Key finished ninth in both the time trial and road race at last year’s road world cup final in Huntsville, Alabama.

After returning from Australia, he competed in the Valley of the Sun bike race, a three-day event that is held in Phoenix every year and includes a time trial, road race and criterium.

“The road race and criterium are really amazing courses and super fun to race,” Key said.

But now, the focus is Europe. Key is not racing in the U.S. Paralympics Cycling Road Open this weekend in Bryan, Texas, a selection event that will determine roster spots for U.S. riders in two world cup stops in May.

Instead, Key is headed for the road world cups in Ostend, Belgium, and Maniago, Italy, on his own. One of his stops will be the schools.

“Europe is the place to be if you want to do what I do,” he said.

Paul D. Bowker has been writing about Olympic and Paralympic sports since 1996, when he was an assistant bureau chief in Atlanta. He is a freelance contributor to USParaSnowboarding.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.