AS a former Yorkshire cycle racing champion and top international competitor, Phil Brighton applies the same hard-pedal grit to his York business, Pinnacle Web Design.

"With my ambition and talent at cycle racing, I was determined to replicate this in web design.

"Being a fighter and knowing that second place is for the first loser, that is not a place I was willing to accept," says 36-year-old Phil, who started his business shortly after retiring from elite cycle racing in 2004.

Bear that in mind as he now enters Pinnacle in the Small Business Of The Year and Best Business and Education Link categories of The Press Business Awards 2007.

In the 1980s Phil studied for his leisure and recreation B-Tech diploma at Scarborough Technical College, and got a job at Lowfield School, Acomb, as a science technician Having won the Yorkshire Championship in 1986, with local club Clifton CC, he was poached by bigger groups, and soon found himself racing for Dutch club Het Twente Ros.

He gained results good enough to allow him to buy his first home at the age of 21, when he returned to York in 1992.

He ran PB Cycles in Strensall until 1999, then, three years later, having joined Askham Bryan College as a science technician, was back in the saddle, supported by the college, as he represented Great Britain in the European Masters Road Race Championship on the Isle of Man. He came a creditable 11th out of 240.

Then, after retirement, without even owning a computer, he set himself the task of becoming a web designer.

He became so expert that, using his education links, he contacted Kevin Davies, manager of the Jorvik Schools Sports Partnership, which included most of the York schools, and designed a website to encourage local pupils to participate in sport.

That triggered a commission for a website for the Ryedale And Whitby Sports Partnership, which represents most of the Ryedale schools.

Soon he was being approached by individual schools.

One of these was Bootham School in York, which wanted him to develop a site for its swimming club.

His bridge-building between business and education was now firmly established.

Meanwhile, he attracted the attention of London businesses trying to avoid the high cost of designers in the capital.

A further boost to his business came when his expertise was used regularly in the international Web Designer Magazine as an adviser of technical questions and a writer of Microsoft tutorials.