It was a baptism moreso by water than fire for Bermuda's mountain bikers in the USA last weekend.

In their historic outing as the Island's first-ever mountain-biking team competing overseas, Neil de ste Croix, Garth Thomson and Andrew Davis withstood pouring rain last Sunday to complete the Bradbury Mountain Challenge in Freeport, Maine.

"The weather was good on the Friday and we did three-and-a-half hours training on the course. On the Saturday it started to rain and Sunday, it rained all day," recalled de ste Croix.

Race organisers continued the cycling programme but shortened the Expert Class, in which the Bermudian trio were competing, to two laps. This reduced the course from 28 to 22 miles.

"It was very wet and muddy and very technical conditions. It was a hard race but it was good and we all enjoyed it," said de ste Croix, adding that Thomson handled the situation the best as he had experienced such conditions before.

"He did very well. His bicycle was broken on the aircraft on the way over so he rented a bike that didn't quite fit him but he still did the event.

"He also got a flat tyre on the first lap and lost about ten minutes but he still finished very well. I finished ahead of him but, when you consider all that happened to him, I think that all things being equal he would have been ahead of me," said de ste Croix of his team-mate.

Though the Bermudians were all in the Expert Class they were separated according to age group. Thomson finished in two hours, 35 minutes and 29 seconds to be 14th out of 17 in the Men's Senior II category (age 27-34). He was also 47th out of 58 Expert competitors overall.

De ste Croix was 12th out of 16 in the Men's Veterans (age 35-44) and placed 43rd overall in 2:33.07. Davis finished in 2:52.04 and was 16th out of 17 (56th overall) in the Men's Senior I category (age 18-26).

"I had a few minor problems, nothing major; one hard crash on a very slippery bridge about 50 metres from the finish," said de ste Croix.

Looking ahead to the Island Games later this month, he noted, this was as good a work-out as they could have desired.

"We are all very happy with our fitness levels. It was two-and-a-half hours of hard effort.

"We're looking a bit at our technical ability but it was described as a very technical course. It doesn't get much more technical than this. The course for the Island Games won't be as technical."