HUMAN dynamo Claire King is Britain's fastest cyclist.

But the 35-year-old, who has out-paced Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman, is no more than a normal commuting cyclist. She is strictly an amateur and not even a member of a competitive cycling club.

She just pedals from her home in Copmanthorpe, through Bishopthorpe and on to York where she works at Norwich Union. The return journey to Barnfield Way each evening sees her complete a 12-mile ride five times a week.

What's more her preparation for her record-breaking feat was a few hours at a near-by beer festival.

So how did she re-write the record books at the Palmer Park Velodrome, Reading.

The answer lies in her bike - or human-powered vehicle to be precise.

King is one of the 200-strong members of the National Human Powered Vehicle Club who hold meetings at various venues throughout the year.

One of the driving forces behind the club is Geoff Bird from Banbury in Oxfordshire. King and her partner, Adrian Setter, are both members of the club and King had a go in Bird's HPV-Heaven.Com HPV.

After a handful of trials they decided that King should have a crack at the Reading time-trial.

The day before the meeting they went to the Hook Norton Beer Festival. Was this to obtain some special rocket fuel?

"No I was driving so I didn't drink," said King, whose only power in the HPV was generated by her legs.

Bird's invention was built in his garage and consists of a 'low racer' recumbent bicycle clothed in a glass and carbon-fibre bodyshell. This silver projectile fully encloses the rider and has approximately one sixth of the air resistance of a conventional track bike.

Despite having only a handful of tests with the bike, King covered 32.52 miles (52.3 km) in an hour to establish a British women's HPV record.

Lapping from start to finish with the consistency of a metronome, she covered the first 25-miles faster than Boardman's road time-trial record and went on to exceed the distance covered Boardman's current UCI world hour record of 30.7 miles.

For good measure, King also shattered the UCI women's hour performance of 29.9 miles held by Italian star Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli's.

Both Boardman and Longo-Ciprelli's records were set on conventional racing bikes - but King's cycle is anything but conventional and is equipped with high-powered gears.

When the sleek aerodynamic lid was removed from the bike at the end of the hour, King was met with a rapturous reception from the crowd.

"It's the most attention I've ever had!" she said after circulating 1.5 seconds a lap faster than she had achieved in practise.

"Geoff's machine is amazing. It is fully enclosed and the visibility is excellent. Now I hope to break my own record by achieving over 35 miles in the hour," she said.

Updated: 10:53 Saturday, August 16, 2003