One had a smile from ear to ear while the other emerged frustrated, but both of Bermuda's women's cyclists had reason to be proud after their road race performances on Saturday.

After completing eight laps of the demanding 93.6 kilometre Commonwealth Games course at Rivington, Julia Hawley and Melanie Claude finished 24th and 25th respectively, both awarded the time of 2:42.47 along with a host of other riders.

Nicole Cooke of Wales took the gold in 2:35.17 while the silver went to Susan Palmer-Komar of Canada and the bronze to Rachel Heal of England.

After cycling together at the opening, Claude left Hawley and a bunch of others behind but her group did not really put the hammer down and the riders were eventually back in formation.

That happened because compatriots of the breakaway front group were between the leaders and the Bermudian girls and that meant there was never a chance of a challenge, the tactic putting paid to any real kind of a race for the rest of the field.

Despite that fact, Hawley was over the moon with her performance shortly after crossing the finishing line.

"It was really good because I nearly got dropped at one point around lap five," she said. "There was an attack off the front and the leaders got away and it kind of splintered a little bit. I was caught in this back pack with a few good girls and I was kind of lucky because the second group held back and we caught them up.

""I knew it was then going to be sprint for the finish and I am just really psyched because I think it's the first time I have beaten Mel in a sprint!"

Hawley said she hoped both she and Claude would take this experience and use it to their advantage in the future.

"This is the highest level of competition we have ever been at," she said. "And I think we were looking for a good solid result. Now it's like a stepping block. I feel really confident and am looking forward to further international events such as this.

"I think myself and Mel can race with any of the girls here. A lot of it is experience and to know that we can race in an event of this standard means I now know we can do many more and represent Bermuda really well."

Claude, meanwhile, was bemoaning her `victim of circumstance' status.

"The conditions were favourable today and I felt very comfortable from beginning to end," she said. "When the first breakaway took place they were just too powerful and I decided to just sit in the second group. We got a bit of a breakaway from the other group but because you had the Canadian and Australian up front there was no incentive for them (their team-mates) to go and chase them down.

"I was kind of lost and was wishing we had some other team-mates because we could have worked to try and catch the front group up or at least keep away from the other bunch. But the end result was that the back bunch caught us up and it made a larger field coming towards the end."

Consequently Claude said the race became a bit of an anti-climax.

"What's really hard is that I could go out there and try and push the field but that would be silly because I would probably end up killing myself and not being able to finish," she said. "You kind of have to go with the flow and sit with the bunch that you are in.

"It's unfortunate when you don't have a team to work with you. You are on your own and you kind of have to hang in and no matter what the pace is, whether it is hard or slow, you have to go at that speed. That is what Jules and I did and then it was a case of all of us claiming the sprint at the end."

National cycling coach Greg Hopkins said he felt Claude was overly self-critical and described both women's performances as `tremendous'.

"If you look at the group that they were in or a lot of the people that were behind them or out of the race then it's what we were looking for - a solid performance in a top road race," he said.

Hopkins said the girls that were off the front were all `the cream of the crop' and it was unfortunate the way the tactics of those riders' team-mates were to the detriment of the Bermudians.

"As you can see Julia is over the moon and Melanie is being very hard on herself," he said. "The reason for that is that Melanie felt very, very strong but if she had tried to do anything on her own they would have just followed. She knows that deep down, it's just that there's a frustration factor there that she will work out over the rest of the afternoon."