One cycle livery is planning to cut the number of its motorcycles on the road by 25 percent for the forthcoming season.

Oleander Cycles' operations manager Johann Moik said the company intends not to relicense 250 of its 1,000-strong fleet for the next 12 months.

But Denise Trew, owner of Eve's Cycle Livery in Paget, was more upbeat about business, saying her company was banking on an upturn in trade by increasing its inventory of bikes for rent this year.

Mr. Moik said the reason behind making provisions to reduce Oleander's fleet was due to a drop-off in tourists and a change in the law requiring tourists to be aged 18 or above to be able to ride a bike, effective from April 1.

He said his company was preparing to run with a fleet of 750 and was waiting to see what happened in the future, but did not hold much hope.

"I think the cycle business has been gradually slowing down and it is down to a series of factors really," he said.

Ms Trew agreed that business had been slow, but she added that her workers were getting ready for the start of the new tourist season in May and had high expectations for what lay in store.

She said there would always be a market for scooters as long as tourists were visiting Bermuda and she believed that they would come back this year and would therefore continue investing in them and their maintenance and upkeep.

"We are down to about a seven-and-a-half month season, so during the off season we have nothing else to do but keep hanging in there and focus on things like the maintenance and upkeep of the bikes," she said.

Ms Trew said that the five-percent rise in the licensing fee for bikes announced in the Budget Statement this month, which comes into effect at the end of March, had come as a shock for cycle liveries — many of whom were expecting some relief instead, as their hotel counterparts had received.

"That is very rough, we had hoped to receive the same sort of relief that the hotels received because we are basically a tourist industry, but we are still hopeful for 2011," she said.

Ms Trew said she planned to put a good proportion of the fleet on the road next month and add to that during May and June when more visitors are expected.

"We are planning to put more bikes on the road this year than last year," she said.