Kris Hedges has promised Bermuda "something special" during this weekend's CD&P Grand Prix.

The Island's blue riband cycling event began last night with a time trial (see story, Page 17), continues tonight with the Front Street Classic Criterium and concludes with a weekend road race.

Hedges, Bermuda's top rider, has travelled from the US with two of his Snow Valley team-mates Glen Randall and John Wirsing.

Although he knows it will be far from an easy ride with the likes of US Postal rider and Tour De France veteran George Hincapie among an incredibly high class field, he's confident of putting in a good showing.

"It will be interesting to see what happens this weekend. Last weekend all the races were cancelled, obviously," he said. "There was scheduled to be a big amateur race on the east coast, but with that being cancelled we haven't raced in a while now, so it will be interesting to see how the legs respond from that kind of rest this late in the season."

Although the depth of the field is not as great as in previous years, Hedges said it was a case of quality not quantity.

"It is going to be very tough. This year the field is a little smaller than in the past but the size of the field has been lost at the back, there are not as many amateur teams, and the profile of the professional teams this year is quite amazing - it is definitely going to be a lot harder," he said.

Hedges put in a stellar performance at last year's event and he hopes to eclipse that this time around.

"Last year my main goal was to finish the Classic in good form and that's what happened," he said. "Obviously that is the primary goal, but I definitely want to do something special. However, with the calibre of the field here we will definitely have our work cut out for us."

Hincapie, who helped the legendary Lance Armstrong to victory in this year's Tour De France, is having a phenomenal year.

He became the first US rider to win the Gent Wevelgem in Belgium and earlier this month blitzed the field in a 210 kilometre event in San Francisco.

But this weekend Hincapie said he would looking for one his team-mates to shoulder most of the responsibility.

"It's been kind of a long season for me so I think we'll be trying to set up Dylan Casey who is still going really well," he said.

Hincapie is no stranger to the event.

"This is one of my favourite places and I have been all over the world," he said. "I really enjoy coming here and racing and taking advantage of the relaxed attitude here."

The terrorist attacks in the US on September 11 led to fears that some of the top teams might not make the trip here.

In the event, only Hot Tubes pulled out of the men's field, leaving around 50 riders to contest the placings.

Hincapie said there had been worries as far as US Postal were concerned, but they were here to race now.

"We definitely were not sure what the situation was. We just had to wait and see and fortunately we made it out," he said.