Dominique Mayho says the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia, in April will be his final major competition for Bermuda.

The 23-year-old admits he has had to “face reality” and accept that he will never reach the top echelons in cycling, having spent the past two years racing at the amateur level in Belgium.

Mayho said he is grateful to have had the opportunity to pursue his dreams and hopes the Gold Coast will be a fitting swansong for his international career.

“If you don’t make it to the top level in cycling by the time you’re about 23, it’s highly unlikely that you will,” Mayho said.

“I’m pretty much too old now. I’ve just had to face reality and I don’t want to be wasting my time for another couple of years. I wouldn’t change a thing, though. I’ve had a lot of good experiences and lived overseas. I’ve done stuff other people would like to do.”

Mayho, who works at Winners Edge Bike Shop on Front Street, has met three of the four qualifying criteria set by the Bermuda Bicycle Association.

Along with Nicole Mitchell, he is hoping to reach the final BBA standard in a local time-trial next month.

“The last [criteria] is to average 28 miles per hour in a time-trial,” Mayho said. “I’ve been training on my time-trial bike for three weeks now. Hopefully I can produce the power that I need to qualify.”

Mayho has been to several major events with Bermuda, representing the island at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto. It is the Commonwealth Games, however, that excites him the most, defining it as the “biggest event I can possibly compete in”.

Mayho added: “To reach the Olympics you have to be in the top 150 in the world and I’m not going to get there. I went to Glasgow in 2014 and that was cool. You get to race with guys who have just come from the Tour de France; all these guys I’ve watched on TV.”

Mayho will not be hanging up his wheels just yet and will continue to race locally while helping the next crop of Bermuda riders.

“I’ve been helping coach Matthew [Oliveira] for a couple of years and I’m always giving him tips. Hopefully the likes of Matthew, Kaden [Hopkins] and Alyssa [Rowse] can use me as a stepping stone and go even farther. Then you’ve got Nicholas Narraway and Ziani Burgesson, who are working hard to be even better than those guys.”