SONIC YOUTH ETHAN HAYTER

Ethan Hayter firmly established himself among the best British riders on the road in 2022. Andy McGrath catches up with him to see how he'll go one step further still in 2023 

- Andy McGrath

Ethan Hayter shows me a photo on his phone. The image resolution isn’t great, the limbs of the four kids in blue and red VC Londres kit are like pipe cleaners and the bikes are almost as big as them. But it’s him all right, standing out in long socks and five-a-side football shoes, strapped into toe clips. “I’d been riding a couple of months, on and off. Just for fun,” he says.

It’s from one of his first races at the south London cycling Mecca of Herne Hill, close to his home. And what’s more, the then-11-year-old next to him is Tom Gloag, who is turning pro with Jumbo-Visma this year. “For some reason, I’d seen the track cycling on TV and wanted to have a go. It was actually before the [London 2012] Olympics,” he says. His school friends mentioned that they were going the next day and the rest is history. Hayter, Gloag and the refurbished Herne Hill Velodrome have all come a long way since then.

Fast forward just over 10 years from his debut race to October 2022 and there’s another striking image. His parents are congratulating him on another world title won, leaning over the Parisian velodrome balustrades. Two words on his dad Tim’s band T-shirt are unmistakable and rather sum up his son’s showing in recent seasons: Sonic Youth.