Ryder Hesjedal's shoulders are hunched under his dark-blue Subaru/Gary Fisher team jacket as he strides toward the Mayfair Mall Starbucks in Victoria, B.C. He gives a low wave through the window before opening the door and folding his lean six-foot-two frame into a chair by the window. Under his toque, his hair is cropped and blonde, lighter on top than on the sides. Nobody in the busy coffee shop gives him more than a quick glance. He looks like any other 22-year-old, although he is far from it. Everything about him is understated, casual, and relaxed. When he speaks, his voice is soft and monotone. When he laughs, it's quiet, accompanied by a small smile. His light eyes wander constantly, never resting for more than a second. It seems like he doesn't want to be noticed.
Hesjedal is a different person when he's racing a bike. His body position becomes efficient and aggressive, his eyes fierce and focused, his teeth clenched. He gets noticed. Last season, he shut any doubters up and proved that he's one of the best cyclists in the world. Not only did he survive eight straight months of racing in both demanding disciplines of road and cross-country mountain biking, he also excelled.
He won his first mountain-bike World Cup, the series final in Les Gets, France. It was a kamikaze solo attack that no one could stop. He won the overall World Cup series title for espoir men, the NORBA short-track series, and placed third at the World Championships in the espoir category. That's just a glimpse of what he did in the dirt in 2002.
Then there is what he has achieved on pavement. He won the Maillot des Jeunes in Normandy, followed by a victory at the Paris-Mantes during an early-season National Team espoir project in Europe. Then in the fall, while riding for Rabobank's Development Squad, he clinched a win in the four-stage Volta Catalunya de l'Avenir in Spain. Hesjedal was selected to compete in the Road World Championships in Belgium, but crashed in a race just a little over a week before the individual time trial event. He injured his wrist and ribs, which forced him to pull out of the World Championships and cut his season short.
Hesjedal wasn't fazed, however. “I wasn't upset at all,” he explains. “It was just like, well, my luck had kind of run out. “So many things can go wrong, and going hard from the beginning of February in Malaysia (Tour of Langkawi) to still being able to perform at the end of September, I mean, that's the ultimate.”
He's already focused on the 2003 Road World Championships in Hamilton, Ont., for which he has been chosen to represent Canada as a first-year senior. It's a challenge he's looking forward to, one that “will be pretty special,” he says.
Hesjedal is looking ahead, but not too far. He's continuing his multi-year contract with Subaru/Gary Fisher and eyeing the World Championships. “I want to ride strong and show it doesn't matter if you're out of espoir or whatever. I've shown I can race with everyone.” He has goals and he's “not scared to set those pretty high.
“I believe that winning the World Cup is possible and for me that means getting to the highest level,” he adds. As well, those light-flecked eyes are intent on the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. Making more time to nurture his talent for road racing is a challenge that Hesjedal, who is known mostly for his mountain-biking prowess, looks forward to. “It's something that I enjoy, doing both, and I use both for each other,” he says. “And I think it's worked out really well this year, and I think it'll be better next year. It's kind of nice to be an all-round good cyclist.”
An ongoing goal of Hesjedal's is to be a positive role model to up-and-coming racers. He remembers having heroes when he first started racing bikes at the age of 14, mentioning Roland Green and Andreas Hestler. Watching them at provincial races in the early season and then seeing them win international competitions later spurred him on in the early days and inspired successes such as his second-place finish at the World Championships when he was a junior in 1998.
He wants to do the same for the Ryders of the future. He wants to show young cyclists that “you can go through the ranks, you don't have to be a European, you don't have to be a this or that” to be a successful bike racer. “You've gotta stick with it and work hard, and your time will come.” Hesjedal “always rode a bike.” He rode it to soccer, baseball, football, basketball, and volleyball practices. As a kid growing up in the Western Communities of Victoria, he grew up around bikes, riding motorcycles, BMXs, and mountain bikes. “I was always riding somewhere. “That was just what you did if you had a bike. You would go ride the trails instead of riding on Millstream Road. I mean, it's more fun to be in the woods.”
Racing was a logical progression. “I was always into sports,” he said. “I was competitive.” After his first race, the Burnt Bridge Classic on Vancouver Island, “that was it for me. I just dug in,” he explains, making it sound like it was out of his hands.
He really can't imagine doing anything else. Maybe baseball or basketball, he muses, but they don't have the elements of “individual battle” and endurance that he thrives on. He seems surprised when he thinks about it. “It's pretty wild how far it's come from racing BC Cups and school series to winning World Cups in France.”
He went from province-wide road trips, camping at the race sites with his dad, to spraying champagne from atop podiums in Europe, an experience he describes as “unreal.”
He speaks about his race at Les Gets like it was a dream, as if he's still not really sure it happened. “I was always just off the front by 20 or 30 seconds. I was just by myself out there, hanging, dangling, and guys could just sort of stay in the group and bridge up and try to go through [to take the lead]. “One after another, going through guys. Everyone came up. I never put my guard down. Even right till the very end when all that was left were the two Volvo [Volvo/Cannondale] riders. In professional racing, the two on one, they're reallySsupposed to get that victory.
“I just attacked as hard as I could and never looked back. It was just an unreal race. I dunno, it was cool.” He shakes his head in disbelief and laughs.