A NEW dawn is rising for North Yorkshire’s pedal-power ace Emma Silversides, but the London Olympics of 2012 may yet slip off her radar.

The Cawood-based professional women’s cyclist, who has suffered a past year of menacing spills and the occasional podium thrill, cannot wait for the 2010 season to start when she will be among the leading riders for a new team.

Silversides, who only propelled herself from amateur status to the professional ranks just two years ago, is to vacate her place on the Belgian-based Lotto Belisol outfit for the new Redsun team, which, while it has Dutch backers, will remain based in Belgium, Silversides’ home since 2008.

The lead Redsun rider will be no less than Swedish ace Emma Johansson, who was second to Britain’s Nicole Cook in the Beijing Olympics last year. The team’s sporting director will be former Belgian national champion Heidi de Vijver, whose enthusiasm has rekindled Silversides’ zeal for the gruelling circuit.

Said the 31-year-old rider: “This coming year I need to be making the next step onwards and so I felt I had to have a change of team.”

It would not have been surprising had Silversides opted to hang up her crash hat after a past ten months in which her competitive nature has been razored by a catalogue of injuries including a fractured collar-bone, displaced ribs and then a badly bruised and impacted breastbone after she was involved in a car crash soon after returning for the last third of the season.

However, her recruitment by Redsun has jettisoned any plans to give up her pedalling patrol across Europe. And her ambitions of more podium places, more points on the gruelling women’s UCI European circuit and possible selection for Great Britain, have been given a fresh impetus.

Silversides is now preparing to join up with her new Redsun team-mates in the New Year – her Lotto Belisol contract expires on December 31.

“When I met up with Heidi de Vijver, the team’s sporting director, she was very enthusiastic and I got an extremely good impression from her and what she wants for the team,” she said.

“Due to the injuries and lay-offs I had last season it was hard for me to have approached an Italian or Swiss team as they will not have seen my performances which were largely restricted to Belgium.

“But Heidi was aware of what I had done. With Redsun I can keep on racing on the UCI circuit and build back to the top level.”

Shortly after returning to the competitive arena from her broken collarbone and rib injuries Silversides swept to her only podium finish of last season – a third place in the famed Tour de Limousin Feminin.

As she took heart from that and regrouped for an all-out assault on the last third of the season she suffered a car crash four days before leaving for a top race in the Ardeche region. Despite the painful injuries to her breastbone she opted to compete but compounded her woes after a fall from her machine in the race.

She returned to Belgium to recuperate. But soon she discovered her long-term accommodation plans had suddenly fallen apart, so she drew a line under last season and returned home to North Yorkshire – taking up agency work in York shortly after a brief break in New York.

Rejuvenated she told The Press: “Now I would like to get more points and maybe three or four podium finishes next year in UCI races.

“I would also like to gain selection for Great Britain though getting to the world championships (in Australia) next year might just be out of reach.”

Silversides, who gave up a career as a maths teacher to turn professional two years ago, reckoned she had another two years in her on the European circuit at least.

So what about those 2012 Olympics in London?

She said: “There are a lot of government initiatives to get people more involved in cycling, but the perception of the cyclist is far different here than it is in Europe.

“For me, the Olympics are not exactly lighting my fire yet. I want to concentrate over the next two years on racing on the Continent where the road racing public have a genuine passion for the sport.”