Early morning traffic will have to make way this weekend for some of Bermuda and the Caribbean's best young racing cyclists.

The fourth Junior Caribbean Cycling Championships, hosted by Bermuda for the first time, will see the riders compete in a time trial today and a road race tomorrow.

Cyclists from 11 Caribbean nations are expected to take part including cycling powers such as Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Barbados and Curacao.

Team Bermuda consists of ten riders, including 2008 medallists Hayley Evans and Sophie Adams. They'll be joined by three other girls – Claire Hawley, Michaela Eberly and Izabella Arnold, all taking part in the championships for the first time.

The male squad is comprised of five riders, four in the juvenile category (15 to 16) and one in the junior category(17-18) in which Philip Woolridge, a veteran of all of the last three championships, will take on what is expected to be an extremely talented field.

His juvenile team-mates are Ryan Gunn, Tre'Shun Correia, Marquis Cann and Dominique Mayho. Gunn participated in the 2008 races in Curacao while Correia, Cann and Mayho have been training with the Bermuda Bicycle Association's new senior school programme.

That programme, the brainchild of BBA president Peter Dunne, has been taking place at CedarBridge Academy and Berkeley Institute, and has already produced a crop of fresh talent.

In today's time trial, competitors will start individually at one minute intervals and ride 17.5 kilometres over a testing course that starts on Middle Road in Paget at the junction with Valley Road, then heads west on Middle Road to Barnes Corner before returning east on South Road to finish at the entrance to the Bermuda College.

The first rider is scheduled to start at 7.00 a.m. and the last rider should have completed the course shortly after 8.30.

Traffic will be prohibited from travelling on the course in the direction of the race while the event is in progress. Middle Road will be closed to west-bound traffic at the Paget lights from 6.30 a.m. to around 8.30. But traffic will be allowed to move freely in the opposite direction of the race.

The BBA will be deploying over 100 marshals at junctions along the course in order to help motorists.

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused to the public, but have tried to select a route and a time that causes minimum disruption as well as creates an exciting course for the competitors," said Dunne. "We hope that the public will come out and support these youngsters."

Tomorrow's race will be contested on a circuit around Hamilton.

Riders will congregate at the Flagpole on Front Street before setting off on an 18-lap route over 72 kilometres.

The course heads east to the old Crow Lane Bakery building following the west-bound lane of East Broadway, and u-turns onto the east-bound lane just before the roundabout. Riders then turn right up challenging Corkscrew Hill before turning left onto Middle Road where they will continue down Reid Street to Queen Street.

A right turn will take them to Church Street where they will turn left and left again on to Par La Ville Road, making a final left back on to Front Street.

Once again roads will be closed from 7.30 a.m. to approximately 12.30 p.m.

East Broadway will be closed with the BBA advising motorists from both the east and the west to enter Hamilton via Happy Valley Road or Parsons Road.