Exeter writer and journalist Edward Pickering has been shortlisted in the prestigious British Sports Book Awards.
The former deputy editor of Cycle Sport is one of six contenders in the Best New Writer category. Other finalists include ex-footballer Clarke Carlisle.
Edward's latest book, The Race Against Time, is about the rivalry during the 1990s in the world of professional cycling between Chris Boardman and Graeme Obree.
"At the time, I was growing up in Exeter and training with the Exeter Wheelers," said Edward.
"After going to university and working abroad, I became a journalist working for Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport magazines, covering the Tour de France and Olympic Games."
Edward has previously ghostwritten the acclaimed autobiography of Australian cyclist Robbie McEwen.
But he isn't getting carried away ahead of the awards ceremony at Lords cricket ground on Wednesday, May 21.
"I'm up against some extremely stiff opposition – Land of Second Chances [Tim Lewis's book about the Rwandan Cycling Team] especially is a wonderful book," he said.
Explaining the choice of subject for his latest book, Edward said: "The Boardman and Obree rivalry appealed to me for a lot of reasons. Everybody knows that Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome have won the last two Tours de France, and that Team GB has dominated the track cycling events at the last two Olympic Games.
"But not many people know where that success comes from. Chris Boardman, who won the Olympic pursuit gold medal in 1992, was the starting point of all the cycling success we enjoy now, so I was interested in drawing that line from his career to where we are now.
"Their achievements alone were incredible, given that cycling was very much a minor sport in the UK in the 1990s. Graeme Obree built his own bike, including the bearings from an old washing machine, broke the world hour record, which is the blue riband of the sport, and won the world pursuit championships twice.
"Boardman also broke the hour record, won the world pursuit championships, and wore the yellow jersey three times at the Tour de France.
"The rivalry between them was cycling's version of Seb Coe and Steve Ovett in athletics, or Steve Davis vs Jimmy White in snooker. It was interesting not just because Boardman and Obree happened both to be good at the same thing. They also had characters which were almost diametrically opposed, making it easy for fans to choose a favourite.
"Obree was a quirky, emotional, mad professor type, an outsider from Scotland and a creative, intuitive thinker. It later transpired that he experienced extreme depression, attempting suicide at least twice. Boardman was an establishment man, a calm, scientific, unemotional rider.
"Their careers took place against a backdrop of scientific and technological change in cycling, which was changing from a traditional, amateur sport, into a modern professional one.
"I was captivated by both riders as a fan at the time, and having got to know them both over the course of my career as a cycling journalist, I felt that there was an incredible story waiting to be told, a story that pitched two unique and opposite men against each other, and which explained the very roots of Great Britain's current cycling success."
