Hayden Roulston has a packed early season program for HTC-Columbia. In January he’s also taking part in the Tour Down Under in Australia, and after that comes the NZ National Track Championships in Invercargill from February 8th-10th. This kind of switching from road to track and back again has always been one of Roulston’s strong points as a rider.  

Although complicated by a nasty crash in the Tre Valli Varesine in August, Hayden’s first season with HTC-Highroad gave both him and the team plenty of cause for optimism in 2011. “It took a while to click, especially with regard to Cav’s lead-out train,” he admits, “It was a question of the personalities gelling more than anything. Now we’ve done that, we’re all pretty close. In one sense, riding for Cav can be quite stressful but it’s also really gratifying. It’s a great feeling when you hear Cav lavishing praise on the rest of us after a win.”

In addition to his many goals on the bike, Hayden hopes to brush up on his Spanish in 2011. “I’ve been living here in Girona for a while now, so it’s about time,” he says. “I learned French pretty quickly when I rode for Cofidis, so hopefully Spanish won’t be too hard when I really put my mind to it.”

A full-time professional since 2003, with his first victory in a stage in the Tour of Poland that year, in 2008 at the Olympic Games Roulston won a silver medal in the individual pursuit as well as a bronze in the team pursuit.  He was an equally diverse athlete as a teenager, saying “I played all sports when I was younger.  I loved rugby and soccer, but my first real love was BMX."

On a personal level, Hayden believes that his 10th place in the 2010 Paris-Roubaix has given him the confidence to aim even higher in the Classics in 2011. “I’d like to think I can finish on podiums in the smaller Classics, then who know when it comes to the big week of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix….”
 

2011 Results

• New Zealand Road Champion
  

2010 Results

• Winner of Tour of the Vineyards
• 4th place Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne