Cyclist Kaden Hopkins is celebrating a return to elite European competition after signing a deal to race for a team based in Belgium.

Hopkins will compete for Atom6-Cycleur de Luxe-Auto Stroo, a team who race at UCI Continental level, the third tier of professional cycling.

The move comes after he spent 2025 racing in Guadeloupe and the experienced 25-year-old is ecstatic at getting the chance to again race in some of the top European events.

“It's a third-tier team, but they’re good enough to get into the top races, so I'll be competing at a higher level in the pro scene in Europe,” Hopkins said.

“I'll be in Bermuda until probably the first week of January and then I'll go back over to Spain for a training camp and I’ll do pretty much the entire month of January there. The team has a training camp at the start of February and then racing will start in the third week of February, with a couple of small races in Belgium.”

The move back to Europe comes as something of a relief to the rider after a year in Guadeloupe took him away from the continent when he failed to secure a spot on a team. Forced to drop a level, Hopkins admits he felt at a crossroads in his career.

“When I found out that I was going over to Guadeloupe, I was just happy because I knew that it meant that I was going to be able to continue racing, which was really the most important thing to me,” Hopkins said.

“I knew being this age and with the level now in the sport that I’m at and the level physically I’m at, if I had taken a year off it would have been borderline impossible to maintain that level. If I’d taken a year completely off, it would probably have been pretty much the end as it would have been really hard to get back in.”

That decision to race in Guadeloupe paid off and his results caught the eye, with a decision made swiftly to join this particular team for 2026.

“I made a lot of good memories, but it just wasn’t my goal to be back in the Caribbean,” he said.

“I feel very lucky to have had that opportunity because I don’t think that this team would have considered me otherwise, but they were able to see through the year that I was still winning races, which is a very good thing.

“My new team want to have aggressive riders. They have guys that are breakaway specialists, sprinters and guys who are better on punchy courses ― the motive behind the team is to have guys who race aggressively, get the team in the spotlight and build some notoriety.

“I’m going to the team as one of the faster riders in terms of sprinting but I'm also one of the older riders and they’ve told me they value the experience I have from so many years racing in Europe, but also in other places in the world.

“They told me that last year they had a strong team but because they were so young there were a lot of guys that just didn’t have that experience in the finals of races to be competitive.”

The return to Europe has sparked a re-evaluation of his training routine and has also been the catalyst for some tweaks in his preparation as he attempts to maintain form for longer.

“I’ve felt over the last couple of years that I always seem to be in really good shape early in the year, but then I struggle to maintain it,” he said.

“I've had some conversations with my coach and this year we’re going to build it up more slowly and build more of a base. Instead of trying to get in race shape immediately, which normally I am in by the end of December, this year we want to go slower so that my body is able to accept the training load and race intensity a little better, with the hope that I can push my top form as far through the year as possible.”

Maintaining his form until later in the year could also benefit Bermuda, with the island having secured two spots in the road race at the 2026 World Championships in Montreal in September.

Hopkins is hopeful that his return to Europe will help him achieve selection for that, but he knows he faces stiff competition for the spots from friends Conor White and Nicholas Narraway.

“The World Championships is going to be a huge objective for me next year,” Hopkins said.

“I’ve raced in it before but last time was my first at elite level. It was a complete unknown, whereas this year I'll be racing at that level for most of the year against a lot of those guys.

“I’m hoping that this time around I'll be a lot more prepared going into it. Then it would just be a case of making that selection, but that is out of my control and down to the Bermuda Bicycle Association and their processes.

“I’m just hoping that with the experience throughout the year, that I’ll be a lot more prepared and I’ve already looked at the course and it suits me, so I'm definitely super motivated for that.

“Next year is big with the CAC Games, the Pan American Championships and World Championships, so those will be big objectives of mine.”