Chad Haga is a name most road cycling fans will know. He won a stage of the Giro d’Italia and competed in 12 Grand Tours total, while mostly helping his teammates in their own bids to win races.
Now, in his second racing epoch he’s a privateer – notably placing second at last season’s Unbound. It was his first attempt at gravel’s most prestigious event.
In this fresh chapter, Haga says he has an unprecedented opportunity to focus on himself.
“It’s about seeing what I can do on my own,” he says. “And in a discipline that suits me a little bit more than road racing did.”
It’s surprising to hear an athlete with his kind of race pedigree say the road didn’t suit him.
“The gravel races I like the most are the extra long ones, the nine to 13 hour races. Where the diesels really come to the fore,” he explains.
While road racing definitely tuned his ability to chug for hours without ever really slowing down – a characteristic that made him a superb domestique – this same ability makes him a viable race-winner off-road.
“My favourite part of road racing was the fight for the breakaway. It comes a moment when you see, ‘Okay, guys are getting tired of this fight. They’re hurting.’”
When he got second at Unbound, it was from a move that took six hours to be established.
“I spent the first six hours just getting my teeth absolutely kicked in because I didn’t know the course. Every technical section, every key moment, I was too far back.”
He recalls the moment that the others in his group began to flag “It was like, ‘Woah, they’re getting tired. They’re finally getting tired.”
Then, as Morton came across to the move he was in.
“Lachlan, with me? We can do this,” he remembers thinking. “We went – and the ‘group two syndrome’ that I expected to happen and had already witnessed happening, took over. And we were able to stay away.”
Going into the finish, it was Morton’s experience of the course that ultimately tipped the tables.
“The final kilometre I've replayed a million times. It hurts. But experience there got him across the line first.”
Could Haga have done it differently and won the race?
“I think I could have. But in that moment, that was the best that I could have done. Like in hindsight, yes, I could have played the last kilometre slightly differently, but I did everything that my training had taught me to do up to that point.
“I just didn't know the finish as well and I miscalculated.”
Chad had gone into the race with an open mind. He was looking to experience the unique magic of Unbound, not to win it. It’s one of the most interesting facets of cycling, where narrowly missing the top step can be a personal victory or a bitter disappointment.
Sometimes it’s a bit of both.
“I was in tears after the finish line,” he says. “Just kind of overwhelmed by all of it. Having showed up with no expectations and yet coming two seconds away from crossing the line first.”
It was another 2025 MAAP Privateer who gave Chad some words of consolation, amid the chaos and clamour of the post-finish paddock.
“Payson [McElveen] was sitting there next to me after the finish line. He's like, ‘I know it hurts. I'm sure it's disappointing to come so close to not win, but you did what you needed to do. You've shown everybody you're a force and you're the real deal’.”
It’s gestures like this, as well as the race vibes, that Haga sees as the biggest difference between his old career and his new reality.
“Coming into gravel, it harkened back to my days of collegiate racing and before that even, amateur racing in Texas.
“You roll up, everybody's got their bikes leaning against their car. It's just chatting in the parking lot. Very relaxed and amicable. We're all here to race bikes and have fun and go hard. But the whole environment around it is so much more low-key.”
While discussing a recent race, Chad mentions how he’d had no idea his teammate was in the breakaway until the main group caught up with them – and how you’ll rarely get time checks on the gaps between the different groups on the course.
Does he thrive on this kind of chaos? Does he hope gravel remains this way?
“Yes, I would. I would like it to stay that way because that also prevents a little bit of the team tactics. The more knowledge you have, the more you can organise a team effort. But if everybody’s in the dark, you just have to make your best call and and go for it.”
Despite his ample experience in the sport, Haga recently got to enjoy a career-first moment when he received his MAAP Privateer jersey for the 2025 season.
“It was cool to work with MAAP and have have some input in guiding the thinking behind it. To bring in my other sponsors and know the outcome is uniquely my jersey. That's a career first and it's pretty special to pull that on.”
