With no overseas events on the horizon, Bermuda's national cycling team are going into temporary hibernation.

After an action-packed season last year that included the Island Games, the Pan-Am Games and the World B Championships, Bermuda Bicycle Association are now faced with a lull in activity until the end of the year when the team are slated to appear at the Caribbean Championships.

The BBA, currently without a national coach after Frenchman Philippe Mauduit's short-term contract came to an end, say it doesn't make sense to have a team in training when there's nothing for them to train for.

"What we have done is make the national squad dormant for the year," explained Association president Danielle Bezant. "The reason being that there are no international events . . . besides the Caribbean Championships are not until the end of October, and, as it stands, that will only be a male event."

The next significant gathering after that is the Small Island Games in the Shetlands in the summer of 2005 and Bezant said the squad would be up and running well before then.

"The Small Island Games, I believe, are in June and by October we would hope to have reactivated the team," she said. "By the time we see this season out we can look forward and say 'Who is interested?' and form a squad from them."

There are likely to be a number of changes to the line-up that the sporting public has come to associate with Island cycling with age and other commitments coming into play.

Kris Hedges, Bermuda's number one cyclist, is now with French-based team VC Pontivy, an Elite One outfit located in Brittany, while other members of the squad are nearer the end than the beginning of their careers.

"Even Kris is going to be an unknown at this point because we don't know where he is going to be with his team," Bezant said. "There are so many things that can happen this season."

New faces were a distinct possibility, she said.

"I think this is the same with any sport," the president added. "There are peaks and troughs. We are going to have a lull and that enables us to focus on other things. This year, for example, we are concentrating on the juniors and junior recruitment. When I say that, I mean riders all the way up to those in their 20s.

"We do not have a lot of riders in their 20s.

"We are going to see that really become a problem in the next few years as our top riders now move into what should be Masters fields."

The production line is likely to come to somewhat of a halt, Bezant said, with those stepping down from national competition not being immediately replaced.

"As with every sport in Bermuda, our youth go overseas to universities and there are not a lot of universities that cater to cycling," she said. "There are few and the few that there are in the US are very expensive. The majority of our students go to Canada and that is putting the brakes on, quite literally.

"It is very difficult for them to continue. There are a few that are trying to but it's tough and that's where our biggest downfall comes ? our youth take four years out to go to college and getting them back into it is very tough."

However, despite this, Bezant denied there was a danger that a sport which had taken great strides in recent years was in fear of slipping back.

"I don't think we will fall back," she said. "As I said, I think we will go into a hiatus. We have a very good young group coming up, but they are not going to develop for another four to six years. There will be a lull and there's not much we can do about that ? it's just the nature of the sport and the age of the riders that we have."

Locally, Bezant said she expected competition to be hot this season.

"I think you are going to see an extremely exciting year locally," she said. "I think there's been a renewed spark locally. We are hoping to get a couple of junior trips in and, hopefully, that will spark some more juniors to come on board and stay on board.

"We were lucky to have the Mels and the Julias (national riders Melanie Claude and Julia Hawley) who came on later in life and stayed," she said. "We don't have any more of them. We need to try and find some, but women in sport in general are just not there.

"It's the same for the men, we lose them to school and although a few of them come back then they are trying to get their careers off the ground. There are a few like Kris, but in order for them to really excel they have to go overseas ? we cannot offer anything here for them. It's tough going."