Maxine Peake is best known for her TV roles in Shameless, Silk and Room at the Top and won rave reviews as the lead in Miss Julie this year at Manchester's Royal Exchange theatre. Now she makes her writing debut with the radio play Beryl: A Love Story On Two Wheels on Radio 4 next week. It's about the late British cycling legend Beryl Burton, an amazing athlete who won seven world titles and dominated UK cycling in the 60s and 70s. From Morley, near Leeds, Burton only started cycling when she met her husband, Charlie, a keen bike man, while working in a factory.

Why Beryl Burton?

My boyfriend got me Personal Best, Beryl's autobiography, and I was fascinated. She was huge in her time. If you speak to people of a certain age who are into cycling they know her – my uncle did – but if you're outside of that world she didn't register. And I thought, more people should know about her. She competed all over the world. The Germans were obsessed with her because she didn't have the fancy coaches and training programmes and equipment that they did, her bikes were cobbled together – this housewife from Morley who was beating all their top athletes.

And why a radio play?

I have a gang of friends, actresses in London, and we sit in coffee shops going: we're not getting the parts we want. I thought: we can't keep moaning about it, let's have a go. I thought radio would be perfect for cycling: the sound of the wheels and the chain… They did say you can't have this many characters but I was like, it's OK, I know this brilliant actor called John Hollingworth and he played about 14 people. I played Beryl and my producer Justine [Potter] made me cycle for real, outdoors. I could have done it on an exercise bike!

You're a keen cyclist yourself, aren't you?

It's just for fun. If everything's getting on top of me I just jump on my bike and I'm fine. I ride a lot locally, round Salford. I like going to the West Pennines where I grew up, and once or twice a year me and my boyfriend go to Norfolk and ride. It's not as flat as you think! The first time I was on a sit-up-and-beg and it nearly killed me. Those bikes are just for models riding round New York with a baguette in their basket. Now I've got a racer. I wish I'd had one as a kid but I was always a BMX kid, trying to be one of the boys. I don't do much Lycra, no. But I do do that terrible roll-one-trouser-up-to the-knee thing.

Will you write more scripts?

I'd like to write female stories, I suppose, unsung heroines. The ordinary combined with the extraordinary, that's what I liked about Beryl.

Beryl airs on BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm on Tuesday