Cycling's unsung hero to take on human powered speed contest on the Beastie, which he built from recycled parts in his kitchen

In an era when British cycling is sufficiently part of the establishment to boast several knights, many people may never have heard of Graeme Obree.

But the Scottish rider, who remains revered within cycling, is back and doing what he does best: going for world records on innovative, self-built bikes. Obree, described as a genius by Sir Chris Hoy, possessed huge natural talent and drive, but a series of factors – not least his refusal to touch the drugs then prevalent in the sport – cut short his career in the 1990s and he slipped into relative obscurity and intermittent depression.

Now at 47, he plans to try for the world human-powered land speed record on a machine which he rides head first, just above the ground. If that wasn't enough, the bike was almost entirely built in his kitchen from recycled parts, including metal from an old saucepan.

The idea that a self-built steel-framed creation, which Obree estimates cost around £1,000 to build, could tackle the 82.8 mph record set in 2009 by a Canadian rider using a computer-modelled, carbon fibre-shelled recumbent machine, seems ludicrous. But this is well-trodden ground for Obree, one of the more creative, bloody-minded and enigmatic characters in British sport.

The Ayrshire-based rider achieved fame from seemingly nowhere in July 1993 when he broke the world one-hour cycle distance record at a Norwegian velodrome, using a self-built bike, Old Faithful. This incorporated a self-created, highly aerodynamic tuck position as well as, famously, ballbearings borrowed from a washing machine.

Obree retook his record the following year, also winning a track world championship title on Old Faithful. When cycling's governing body, the UCI, outlawed the tuck stance, Obree came back with an equally creative alternative, the stretched out "Superman" position, to win another world title.

Graeme Obree competes during the preliminary round of the men's individual pursuit at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Photograph: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

That was where it ended. It is arguably paradoxical to describe a man whose autobiography, The Flying Scotsman, was made into a film staring Jonny Lee Miller, as an unsung hero, but Obree never notched up the titles and fame of his peers, such as Chris Boardman.

Obree's sole Olympics, in 1996, saw him exit in the preliminary rounds. His career with a French professional road cycling team lasted one day. Obree has always maintained he was sacked when he made it clear he would not use drugs.

He has endured a turbulent personal life, affected by self-criticism and depression, eventually diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Obree came out as gay a couple of years ago, something he says has contributed to his happiness. His decision to do so is still relatively unusual in professional sport.

He reinvented himself as an author and a speaker, and just over two years ago began plotting an attempt at the human-powered bike speed record. Rather than adapt one of the feet-first recumbent bikes traditionally used for such bids, Obree, typically, started from scratch.

The result is the Beastie, in which the rider lies face down and head forward, with his or her feet powering a pair of narrower push-pull levers rather than conventional pedals.

Graeme Obree on the sea front in Ayrshire in 2007. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

"The idea came from first principles," Obree said. "The widest part of the body is the shoulders, so if you think about a teardrop shape it makes sense to have that at the front, and the feet‚ with the push-pull, meaning they just miss each other at the narrowest part, at the back.

"The first thing I had to do was the basic outline of the structure. The body's the one thing you can't change. Everything else was built around that mechanically."

The Beastie was built mainly in Obree's small flat in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, with excursions to a friend's workshop. The steel frame came primarily from old bikes, and as many other components as possible were recycled. Stainless steel from an old saucepan became part of a shoulder rest.

Such a process was necessary, given the innovative design. Obree said: "It was one of those things where I didn't know exactly what I wanted until I could see how it came into shape. If you're building it yourself you can make all the fine changes as you go along. If it's done by someone else, when it comes back you'll go: 'Oh, that's wrong,' and it could take weeks to fix. But doing it myself, in my own flat, the same process could take an hour."

Obree has tried out the machine once, wobbling to a modest 30mph or so on a runway at Prestwick airport, without the aerodynamic fairing, as he got used to the low-slung machine's twitchy ride. "The main thing was, once I was launched I could hold a relatively straight line," he said. "That's good to know. I'd say the test was pretty successful in terms of mechanical parts working. The skin's fine, the bike's steerable, nothing fell off."

In September Obree and the Beastie will decamp to a super-smooth, high altitude road in Nevada for the annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge. He is promising nothing. "All I can do is go and give it a good punt," he said. However, a record would bring renewed recognition.

The temptation is to create a narrative in which this would be vindication for a man denied the celebrity of Hoy and Sir Bradley Wiggins thanks to petty officialdom and the endemic drug taking of early 1990s cycling. Obree, typically, doesn't see it that way.

"In a lot of ways I wouldn't like to be as famous as Bradley Wiggins. I think that would be totally awful, actually, getting stopped in the street everywhere. I get it occasionally but it's quite polite, it's nice. It's not a crowd of people around you, like Chris Hoy gets. I wouldn't want that level of fame."

Nonetheless, Obree says he is glad the post-Lance Armstrong cycling era is more ready to hear his story: "I've got no regret about not taking drugs. But I obviously wonder how I'd have got on at the Tour de France. That was what I was lined up for. But that wasn't my overriding goal from the start, my goal was a world record, so I got that, and the world championships. The Olympics got away, obviously. And it would have been great to get Olympic gold and, say, a Tour de France stage win. But hey ho.

"And you know what? I escaped with my health and my honour. In a lot of ways I don't have any regrets."

An innovative man

To get a sense of the extent to which Graeme Obree likes to re-think the very fundamentals of his sport, consider his self-penned 2012 training manual, The Obree Method. Inside is an entire chapter about how to adapt your breathing so as to absorb more oxygen (it's all to do with the out-breaths).

Craig MacLean, who competed on the velodrome for Britain at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, recalls first meeting Obree at track competitions in the early 1990s.

"He thinks about everything in a very unconventional way. There's some ideas about training he gave me which I still use today. Cycling is almost like a big experiment for him.

"He was a bit of a maverick around that era. Cycling was very much a traditional sport ‚you only ever rode fixed gear in the winter and you had to do a certain number of miles before you were allowed back on your normal road bike, all these things that had been around since the dark ages. But he always did things differently."