Hayden’s a dude. Just the right amount of chilled and focused, while more than able to laugh at himself and twists and turns that his life throws at him. Currently racing in the Tour of Utah, we caught up with Hayden one summer afternoon in his Te Awamutu hometown, where he talked us through the set-up of his BridgeLane Cervelo in his casual laid-back but jokey way, pointing out all the little nuances that make it individually his. The closer you look, the more you see.

“The R5? If you’re going to get any bike you’d get this. Just to ride it feels super nice and it descends well. They say you measure a bike on how it descends, and this just does nothing wrong. It’s comfortable, light. I am a fan of aero bikes but this is bugger all slower and it’s not trying to do anything crazy and just handles real nice.”

“130mm stem. Yeah, slammed, I have the stem slammed anyway but I didn’t have an option [because of the traditionally longer headtube of the Cervelo range]. This stem is like negative nine or something strange, I like it like that, the frame is stiff and you can have the stem slammed, it’s just easy.”

“I’ve got 170 cranks on, which is a lot of people are doing now but I’ve had them for a couple of years. People have only had 172.5 because people have only had 172.5’s, but there’s no actual reason. And actually on my TT bike I’ve got 165’s and when you tell anyone they are like ‘fark, bro!’ but I don’t know, I just like them.”

“I changed them two weeks before TT Nat’s, but I only rode the bike a month before so it wasn’t that drastic, but I moved to 170’s probably two years ago. I’ve got I’ve got a funny shape body, as in my femur is super long and my calves are pretty short. The SPEEDTheory/Velologic dude David Bewdon actually suggested it and I just tried it. He’s like basically a science nerd, and I say that in a nice way, and he said to try it on my TT bike – you’ve just got to go with what feels good.”

“I’ve got 38 bars, which people probably also will find weird but I’ve had them for a couple of years and a lot of people doing are that now too. It’s funny because when I started I had 172.5 and 42’s but growing up now I’ve got 38’s and 170’s. I really like them and once you use them you can’t go back. If I ride 42’s now it feels like you are steering a wheelbarrow – feels super weird. Again, I just tried it and it felt right. Yeah, I think Hanson kind of started it years ago with something crazy like 36’s or something and had super long cranks in a kind of like Frankenstein set-up, but lots of guys have narrow bars now as it’s a lot easier to get through gaps and even if you look at the Sprint guys like Eddy Dawkins they all ride skinny bars too, so power wise it doesn’t affect you, and I guess it makes the bar a tiny bit stiffer and lighter – less bar tape!”

“I never ride carbon bars, I just don’t see the point, I’ve never heard anyone say they’ve lost a bike race because they haven’t got carbon bars, and also if you crash they can break and you just have to be more careful when clamping everything. I just think it’s the one thing that is unnecessary. This bike out of the box is seven kilos with normal wheels, but you could quite easily cut a bit of the seatpost off and put carbon wheels on, some light bottle cages on and it would be 6.8 without really trying.”

“It’s a team saddle. In the past I’ve always had terrible saddles and for the last six years I’ve had a bad back as in its been tight and then I tried this one after the Sun Tour and got a bike fit and it’s like a world of difference. That’s actually why I went with a longer stem because I’m now sitting properly and I’ve done lots of work on my back so I’m now longer and less hunched.”

“The bags? Actually Taylor Phinney got me onto these [check out @manifestbutter for more Phinney inspiration]. At the start I thought it was a bit stupid but then I saw how practical they were especially over the longer rides like six hours. When you’ve got to take a rain jacket and food, you’ve got your wallet and phone and house keys, you’ve just got no bloody room normally.

It’s just nice having nothing in your pockets and if you want to grab something it’s super easy. I’ve got a little waterproof bag for my phone, a set of Allen keys, some emergency food, some patches. I like to have both CO2 and a pump, but I always run out of CO2’s and you always forget to replace them, but you have to have a pump because if you have more than two punctures you are in trouble, and you don’t want to be that guy.”