Ben King has moved on from Doug Ryder's NTT Pro Cycling, and Rally Cycling has announced that he will join the UCI Pro Team in 2021.

King joins Joey Roskopf, who is heading to the US team from the WorldTour, as well as climber Keegan Swirble, Dutchman Arvid de Klein, and 2019 Junior World Championship bronze medalist Magnus Sheffield.

The addition of King brings the 2021 roster to 17, with 12 updated: Steven Bassett, Rob Britton, Nate Brown, Robin Carpenter, Pierre-André Coté, Matteo Dalsin, Adam De Vos, Colin Joyce, Gavin Mannion, Kyle Murphy, Emerson Olonto, and Nicholas Zukofsky.

The future of the NTT team is still uncertain, despite information that the riders have found a replacement title sponsor; the uncertainty of the team's future was a burden for King, who returned to the US after the birth of his first child in October and a shortened European season.

"It's been a very tough year with a lot of lockdowns and being away from my wife. The birth of the baby also put a lot of stress on me," King said in a press release. When racing resumed, there were a lot of unknowns about whether I would be able to return to the U.S. to have the baby." I also didn't know what I would do with my job, as NTT Pro Cycling was looking for a title sponsor. [As a result, I was unable to focus on training, racing, or enjoying the process, and the extra stress was tiring and draining me.

Jonas Kearney, performance director of Rally Cycling, surprised King with the offer when he was still in the hospital with his wife and newborn son.

"Jonas actually called me in the hospital a few hours after my son was born and made me an offer to join the team.

"I am very excited to be back. I have kept in touch with Jonas every year for the past 10 years. He and Charles Aaron have always been people I look up to and enjoy meeting."

For King, heading to Rally Cycling is also a homecoming to the same organization he first signed up with as a freshman at Virginia Tech, Kelly Benefit Strategies-Medifast.

King raced with the team for one season before moving to Trek Livestrong, where he raced for two years under Axel Merckx before making his World Tour debut with RadioShack in 2011.

"I still remember winning the junior championship in 2007 and getting a call from Jonas Kearney in my college dorm room. 'I had to decide if the direction I wanted to take my life was to ride a bike. That chance from Jonas really changed my path."

In ten seasons with the WorldTour, three with Radioshack, three with Slipstream, and four with his current team, King has competed in eight Grand Tours (five Vuelta a España, two Tour de France, and one Giro d'Italia) and is a faithful A highly regarded domestique, he won the best young rider award at the Tour of Beijing in 2011, a stage win at the Criterium International in 2015, and in 2018, his most successful year, the mountains jersey at the Volta ao Algarve, two stage wins at the Vuelta a España.

"Obviously, the Vuelta is a special event for me and on paper it's my best result. But I really want to go back to the Giro. I've lived in Italy for the last 11 years and I've only competed in the Giro once. And of course, there is the Tour. The Tour is a whole other level in terms of everything surrounding the race. I hope I can help the team get there."

As King's career progressed, so did Kearney's team. The team started as a Continental scrap team targeting criteriums on the national road calendar, but after Optum sponsored the team in 2011 and Rally became the title sponsor in 2017, the team joined Pro Continental in 2018, In addition to the North American calendar, the team now does a lot of racing in Europe.

This change has given King new motivation to train, and he looks forward to the increased responsibility and opportunities to share his experience with his new teammates.

"I am amazed at how motivated I am. I've resumed training. I'm still trying to figure out how to get enough sleep with my newborn's schedule, but team camp is coming up and I'm looking forward to the races after that." [I like the team's vision and the direction they've taken in the 10 years I've been away. It's exciting to be a part of it and hopefully I can have an impact on the further growth of the team." Joey Roskopf is coming, and with the results the team achieved with Gavin Mannion and Keegan Swirble at the end of the season, I'm excited to be able to go to that kind of environment."

Leaving the team are Ryan Anderson (retired), John Murphy, Ty Magner, and Nigel Elsay.

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