WHAT do the initials BB stand for? Best before? Brigitte Bardot? Billy Bremner?

In Yorkshire, BB means Beryl Burton. Mother. Housewife. Yorkshirewoman. Cyclist. Legend.

If the Tour de France's trip to God Own Country does nothing else, it has resurrected the memory of these isles' greatest ever sportswoman.

Before the lights go down, several cast members step out from behind the fourth wall to admit they had never heard of Beryl, the Morley lass from the days of amateur sport whose skills were forged on the rugged Yorkshire moors and hard graft on the county's rhubarb farms.

Ironically, it has taken a Lancastrian, actress turned debutant playwright Maxine Peake, to tell the story of "Beryl who?" in a stirring, tear and cheer-inducing four-hander that began life on BBC Radio 4 in 2012. It now transfers to the stage with perfect timing, playing to the home crowd with a dig or two at the Red Rose but with an appeal beyond mere parochialism. If cinema has snapped up the deeds of Sea Biscuit, Aldaniti and Bob Champion and washing-machine cyclist Graham Obree, then surely there is bags more buzz in Burton's tale that could make a champion film too.

Peake writes in the spirit of comic-book heroes and black-and-white newsreels, coupled with echoes of Michael Palin'sRipping Yarns and nods to the physical theatre of John Godber and the purposeful, ground-breaking heroine of Harold Brighouse's Hobson's Choice. In doing so, she applies a lightness of comic touch to her more serious admiration for down-to-earth Beryl's achievements against the odds. The perfect combination.

What's more, albeit with passion more than profundity, Peake takes you inside Beryl's head, from childhood onwards, capturing what made her indefatigable in defying the rheumatic fever at ten that left her forever with an irregular heartbeat and the advice to never take strenuous exercise. Ninety championships and seven world titles was Beryl's response.

Peake's script is episodic and chronological but Burton's story has so much drama, right to the end, that it would be folly to present it any other way, and director Rebecca Gatward skilfully knits it all together to complete her life pattern, in keeping with Beryl's love of the cross-stitch craft.

Mic Pool's projections of fast-moving Yorkshire scenery give a sense of the thrill of cycling, but it is the cast that creates the theatre magic, against the backdrop of the cycle shop where Beryl first worked as Penny Layden gives her all to playing Beryl.

John Elkington, Chelsea Halfpenny and Dominic Gately adopt multiple roles between them and they even provide sound effects, most notably using cycle spokes and brakes to mimic a plane taking off and landing.

The audience is so drawn into Beryl's endeavours that when she offers a "Liquorice Allsort, Mac?" in the act of overtaking male rival Mike McNamara to win a 12-hour time trial, everyone bursts into a round of applause.

Leeds is to make Beryl Burton a freeman of the city posthumously. This play is no less a fitting tribute; like Beryl, just champion.

Beryl, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until July 19. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk