MUCH tyre rubber has been worn away since Maxine Peake's tribute to Yorkshire and Britain's greatest neglected sportswoman, Morley cyclist Beryl Burton, first zipped in and out of the West Yorkshire Playhouse to coincide with last summer's Le Grand Depart.

Anything but plain Gary Verity has been anointed Sir Gary, half a year later than he should have done, mind you, while Beryl has been given the status of a Freeman of Leeds posthumously. The Tour de Yorkshire brought Sir Bradley Wiggins to the God's Own Cycling Country in May, and Wiggo has broken a distance record and picked his records for Desert Islands Discs. Here in York, a spate of bike cafés has become all the rage.

There always was bags more buzz to Burton's story than last July's run, so the Playhouse has been quick as Beryl once was to climb back into the saddle for a merited revival of Rebecca Gatward's joyous production.

If you saw the stage premiere of what had begun as a 2012 radio play, then go again because this is no mere re-cycling; two of the four cast members are new, including Samantha Power (what an apt surname) as Beryl Burton, or BB as the long-reigning queen of amateur cycling was known with her 90 championships and assorted world titles.

Not without irony, it has required a Lancashire lass, actress and debutant playwright Maxine Peake, to tell the story of "Beryl who". Mother. Housewife. Yorkshirewoman. Cyclist.

If you don't know of Beryl's achievements against the odds, you are not alone. Several cast members admit as much at the outset before assuming their roles on Naomi Dawson's set design of a cycle workshop, where dreams are spun, although the indomitable Burton's skills were shaped on the harsh Yorkshire moorland hills and toughened by graft on the farms of the county's rhubarb triangle.

Peake's storytelling applies a humorous lightness of touch in evoking comic-book heroes and black-and-white newsreels, interwoven with the nostalgic spirit of Michael Palin's Ripping Yarns and modern physical theatre of John Godber, while the ground-breaking northern heroine of Harold Brighouse's Hobson's Choice comes to mind too.

Much like Asif Kapadia's documentary on Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, Peake taps into Beryl's head in her episodic, chronological drama, conveying her vow to "make my mark", defying the rheumatic fever at ten that burdened her with an irregular heartbeat – undetected until pregnancy – and the advice to avoid strenuous exercise.

Aside from Mic Pool's projections of fast-moving Yorkshire scenery, the cast does everything, Power's no-nonsense Beryl leading from the front, complemented by the returning John Elkington and Dominic Gately and excellent new addition Rebecca Ryan in multiple roles, clever sound effects and all.

You will cheer, you will shed a tear, as the triumphs and the falls pile up year upon year, like the stitches of Beryl's knitting pastime. Amid cycling's new peak of popularity, the late, great Beryl Burton wins again. Mother. Housewife. Yorkshirewoman. Cyclist. Freeman. Legend.

Beryl, Courtyard Theatre,West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until July 18. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk