Hayden Mayeur trains up to seven hours a day, five days a week with the Canadian national speed skating team.
For the 24-year-old, chasing the Olympic dream is an expensive, full-time job that doesn’t always pay the bills. He found himself working late into the night to support himself, sometimes at the expense of his training.
“Amateur sports are very expensive. It’s not cheap to keep a roof over your head, eat well, equipment, travel costs, all that sort of thing, ”Mayeur said. “Adds”.
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“That said, none of us do it for money. I do it because I aspire to be able to wear the maple leaf on my back at the Olympics one day. “
The pandemic forced Team Canada to train alone for months.
During a long bike ride, Mayeur suddenly found a solution to his workload.
Inspired by the team’s love of frequenting Calgary coffee shops and a desire to honor their French heritage, Mayeur and his father laid the foundation for a Hayloft Cafe mobile coffee shop in a matter of hours.
“Keeping it mobile lowered the rent,” Mayeur explained. “Not even a month later, I was coming back from Vancouver with this truck on a flatbed.”
The truck is a handsome imported 1978 Citroen 2CV pickup. Great style, but little power.
The 1978 Citroen 2CV has around 29 horsepower, smaller than the average motorcycle. It easily passes through standard double doors, allowing Mayeur to fit inside most buildings.
Cami Kepke / Global News
It took Mayeur the first year of the pandemic to fully outfit the truck with the necessary equipment, obtain the proper license from AHS, and team up with Calgary’s Rosso Coffee Roasters head barista Cole Torode for a crash course on how to make the cup. perfect.
“I had to make coffee for the entire warehouse team, which for me was very stressful having to make coffee for world-renowned coffee specialists. It was a stressful place for me. On top of that, he was serving them his own product, ”Mayeur recalled.
Passed the exam.
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Hayloft Cafe doesn’t work like a typical food truck.
Rather than selling coffee cup for cup, Mayeur is reserved for private events like weddings, open houses and corporate parties at a flat rate, giving you the flexibility to choose your hours with guaranteed income.
While the café has been hugely successful in its first year, it is still a side hustle. Mayeur’s focus is on the ice, where it has flourished lately.
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He captured a silver medal in the mass start and gold in the team pursuit with Ted-Jan Bloemen and Kaleb Mullerat at the ISU Four Continents long track championship.
“The first time we skated together as a three-man chase team was about two hours before that race, so we had a total of six laps as a team,” Mayeur said. “At the end of the day, we got the gold medal and the second fastest chase time ever skated by a Canadian men’s TP team.”
Whether it’s Beijing or Italy 2026, if Mayeur gets the Olympic call, she’ll be celebrating it with coffee instead of champagne.
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