Eric Ryder Hesjedal (/raɪdər hɛʒɑːdɑːl/) (born December 9, 1980) is a retired Canadian professional racing cyclist who last rode for UCI ProTeam Trek–Segafredo. He is a former mountain biker, and won a silver medal at the 2001 Under-23 world championship. He turned professional with Discovery Channel in 2005 after several years with the Rabobank continental team. Having previously finished in fifth place at the 2010 Tour de France, Hesjedal won his first Grand Tour at the 2012 Giro d'Italia, the first Grand Tour win by a Canadian.

His career started out with him competing as a mountain bike cyclist. Hesjedal first met success as a two-time world champion in the mountain bike relay event in both 2001 and 2002. He won silver as an individual at the 2003 world mountain biking championships and competed at the 2004 Olympics for Canada in the mountain bike category. At those games, Hesjedal was on his way to an Olympic medal and likely a gold medal before a sharp rock cut and flattened his tire, ending that Olympic dream.

As a result of both the early success and disappointments in his career, this allowed him to make the full-time switch to road cycling. A climber and time trialist, he was selected by Discovery Channel for the 2005 Giro d'Italia and helped Paolo Savoldelli win, although failing to complete the course himself. After 2005 he joined the Swiss team Phonak. There he began to build some of his best results, finishing fourth in the 2006 Volta a Catalunya and second in the 2006 Canadian time trial championship. Later that season he rode the Vuelta a España, although he dropped out near the end to concentrate on the road world championships in Salzburg. He achieved only modest results. The end of the Phonak team led him to Health Net for 2007. For 2008 he joined Garmin-Slipstream and helped Christian Vande Velde to fourth in the Tour de France.

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