Ethan Hayter has revealed that problems with on-the-bike nutrition severely hampered his debut season for Soudal Quick-Step last year, claiming that at “quite a few races I wasn’t just a bit off, but a long way off.”
After five years with Ineos Grenadiers, the Londoner made the move to Quick-Step seeking to rediscover the form and consistency he showed in 2021 and 2022 especially, when he was regularly competing with – and occasionally beating – the likes of Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe.
But the 27-year-old told both Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews at his team’s media day in Calpe, Spain that those results only masked his deficiencies in most other areas. “I just wasn’t really performing physically anywhere near where I could be and there were quite a few things going on.
“With the Giro d’Italia I got told a few weeks before [that he was going], and I struggled with changing the nutrition brand. For 90% of the guys it’s fine, but there’s always one or two guys who have a problem with a brand. It’s quite individual.
“With eating so much, I was getting really bloated from certain products in the range, and I just wasn’t digesting it properly. I was doing a lot of races where I’d normally be quite good but I was getting dropped. And it wasn’t a tactical problem but physical.
“Because of that my weight management was a bit off because you’re quite finely tuned with these things, so if you’re then not processing stuff properly and getting bloated and having stomach issues, you try to eat more at other times to compensate, and I had to manage that well.
“There’s a lot more going on in bike races than people realise. We’ve been working over the winter on that and hopefully I’ll be better this year, fingers crossed.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Despite those problems, Hayter regularly demonstrated his speed and class in efforts against the clock. “I got away with it a bit in time trials last year when it was less than an hour,” he said. “When I was having trouble with nutrition I could do a good effort on the TT bike. I was fortunate to have such good equipment that even if I was physically off the pace I’d be top-10.
“There was a big gap with the road and the TT bike, and there were quite a lot of factors going on. But there were still moments like at the Tour of Belgium where I was pretty good and where I would want to be.
“I don’t think I set the expectations too high but I found it quite frustrating not performing the way I wanted to perform, especially starting in a new team and wanting to start on the right foot.”
Hayter is hoping that those issues are now behind him. He will start his season at the UAE Tour, and also ride Tirreno-Adriatico, Itzulia Basque Country and Tour de Romandie in a spring focused on WorldTour stage races. “I am targeting more one-week races this year as we thought it’d work well with the program,” he said.
“Most of them have a TT and hopefully a few reduced sprints so I can try to be competitive. There’ll be a few weeks between each one so that should let me get to each race in good shape and ready to perform.”
The two-time Olympic medallist on the track is also planning to race in the velodrome towards the end of the year, but expected inclusion for the Vuelta a España means a career-first Tour de France appearance will have to wait until at least 2027 when the race starts in the UK.
“I’ve always been in a funny situation. There are probably more guys who are better at helping than I am, and in general I’m better at going to small races and getting results,” he said. “So the way you structure a season it doesn’t make a load of sense for me to go to the Tour. But one year I obviously really want to do it.”
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