Geri Mewett is still getting over, both mentally and physically, his disastrous outing at this year's Commonwealth Games.

Part of Bermuda's cycling team at the event in Manchester, England, Mewett had based his season around the road race that pitted the Island against some of the world's top riders.

It had all started so well with Mewett, Steve Millington and lead rider Kris Hedges handily placed as the field made their way around the circuit at Rivington, near Bolton.

But disaster was to strike when Mewett came upon an inexperienced back marker.

Travelling at 60km an hour on a downhill stretch of the course, Mewett had to try and dodge the rider from Kenya when the African locked up on a corner.

A collision occurred which resulted in the Islander being thrown into a tree, damaging his ribs and wrecking his bike in the process.

The road to recovery has been gradual and Mewett still gets reminders of the accident.

"I was forced to take about a week off the bike because my ribs were still causing me pain. I then had another week were I just took things easy," said the rider from his base in Tennessee.

A friend who is a doctor told Mewett that he had damaged the cartilage between two of his ribs and felt he had probably cracked them as well.

"I had a bit of time to get over the worst of it, but for three and half weeks it was still painful at times," he said. "It would feel good and then you would do one little thing and it would be really quite painful. But they are getting better slowly."

Whereas Mewett will make it out again to race, his bike was not so lucky.

"That was a brand new bike that I had just got the week before I went so whatever wasn't broken I took off and put on my old frame. It's just hanging there like a trophy fish on my bike rack right now!" he said.

Mewett started racing again on August 24 and registered a sixth place finish at a regional race recently.

However, he admits the incident in England is still weighing on his mind.

"It's a little hard to get motivated. I am still, I guess, a little bummed out about the way everything happened. It's just going to take time to get back into it," he said.

"It's more a question of motivation than anything. I just keep on thinking that I spent nine months of time and energy training specifically for (Commonwealth) and it was all taken away in two seconds."

There might be no better place to rediscover his enthusiasm than here in Bermuda at next week's CD and P Grand Prix.

Mewett is coming with two US riders, Heath Dotson and Frank Pipp, and will link up with the aforementioned Millington to form the Cane Creek Subaru team which will challenge for honours over the four day event.

"Obviously, I would like to do well and it will be fun to race in front of a home crowd," he said. "It's been a while since I was home racing, two years ago at the Grand Prix actually. That's always motivating, to come home and race in front of crowds like that."

Competition will be stiff for the biggest ever Grand Prix with organisers actually having to close the door to would-be entrants. But Mewett is hopeful his team will be able to hold their own.

Dotson is the team's marketing director as well as being a top regional category one racer, while Pipp is one of the best all-round riders in the mid-west and has had several excellent results this year. Millington, the Island's number one locally based rider, of course needs no introduction.

"I'd like to think we'll be competitive but obviously we'll be up against some bigger teams," Mewett said. "It's just like Commonwealth - you just have to go in there and hope to do well having done everything you can to prepare. You just have to take it the way it falls."

If all goes to plan falling will not be one of the memories that Mewett takes back to the US.