With less than a month to go before the start of the new European cycling season, Kaden Hopkins finds himself without a team.

Hopkins, who finished 32nd in the elite men’s time-trial at the UCI World Championships in Zurich in September and won the green jersey at the tour of Guadeloupe, was released by development team Vendée U at the end of last season after two years with the team.

The French outfit made the decision to focus on riders aged 23 and younger but after informing Hopkins of their change in policy as late as August, he has been left with little time to find a new home for his talents.

“The way that most of the development teams in Europe are going now, they are all going strictly under-23,” Hopkins said.

“I spoke with the staff of the team in August and they said that was the direction Vendée U are going and that they want to focus on that under-23 category. I believe they kept only one guy older than that.

“The problem I have is that the team didn’t let me know until August that I wasn’t going to be on the team any more and that left me in a tough situation as the way the cycling world works, the discussions for the next season start in June and then by August or September is basically when teams are confirming everything. If I had known in June, it probably would have been a bit easier.”

Hopkins, now 24, has an agent to help him find a new role, with talks taking place with an Italian team at the moment, and the rider is thankful that he is not having to go it alone on the hunt for a new home.

“I’ve had an agent for the last four years so I’m lucky enough that I don’t actually have to do the searching and the discussion work myself,” Hopkins said.

“He lives in Spain, in the same town as I do, so I see him all the time. He’s from a very good agency and he has told me that there are a couple of agents working across all different parts of Europe.

“The agency that I’m with have agents that specialise in Spanish racing, French racing and Belgian racing and they have told me they are confident they will find something .

“With the level I’m at now, every team will race all over the place. So I’ll still be living and based in Spain and whichever team I go to, I’ll be racing all over the place.”

Hopkins is not one to panic and is confident that his agent will eventually find him a place to continue his career.

“I’m not panicking but if I didn’t have an agent I probably would be,” Hopkins said.

“The agency I am with, I have 100 per cent belief in them as they have a lot of high-level riders, including Tadej Pogacar [world and Olympic champion], and a lot of the best guys on their books. I know that they have the contacts.

“There is not really a deadline, but for my own personal preference I wanted to find out by the end of December. I do know riders last year who signed in January and as the season starts for pretty much every team in February, that is the deadline.”

After resetting his focus in Bermuda during the festive period, Hopkins is back in Spain and training for the season ahead, with his goals already set despite not knowing his destination as yet.

“I wanted to disconnect and reset my focus for next season as last year was such a long season, from the first week of February to the first week in November,” Hopkins said.

“It was almost ten months and it was a season that had a lot of ups and downs for me personally, so getting a mental break was good.

“I took four weeks off the bike and I’m reset and looking forward to building for the season and hopefully try to avoid sicknesses and falls as much as possible.

“It’s not easy to do that in this sport but that’s my goal for this year, to have as consistent a season as I can with as few setbacks as possible.”