IF YOU want to become a household name in cycling, all roads lead to the Tour de France.

That is the direction sign Isle of Wight talent Kieran Page is following - and experts in the tough and ultra-competitive sport reckon he has what it takes to reach the summit.

Page took up cycling when he was 15 and was peddling his way into the limelight within months.

The former Medina High School pupil has already represented Great Britain at the Commonwealth Games, where he created a new track record - albeit for just a matter of minutes.

The 21-year-old has been dealt a cruel blow in recent months with the reoccurrence of an Achillies injury that has forced him out of the World Track Championships in Los Angles in March.

But Page is a positive cyclist who can still find a plus from the situation and he is really pumped up for the forthcoming season.

"The World Track Championship is what I have been working towards for the last two years and this injury has cost me my place. But it means I will get an extra month in France on the road," said Page, who is about to spend a second season in France. There he will compete with riders who share his Tour de France ambition and also want to get their faces noticed by sponsors and elite team selectors.

Page was just six when he watched Greg LeMond wipe out a 50-second deficit and pip Frenchman Laurent Fignon to the crown in Paris in 1989.

That image remained locked in Page's mind and he put the wheels in motion to his career when he left home aged 18 to be with his fellow Great Britain teammates at their Manchester HQ. But Page puts much of his early success to the hilly home roads of the Isle of Wight.

"The very nature of the Island is good for training but if I go on a long training session of around seven hours I have to go around it twice," he said. "But the benefit is on three-hour rides where it is up and down all the time. That is what has done me good."

Getting noticed in France can be the key to success but it is a tough ask for overseas riders - though the youngster made himself known during 2004 where he finished 53rd in the Elite2 class.

"It's not that often that you get a British rider go over to France and do that well," said Page, who is about to join the respected AVC Aix-en-Provence team.

One person who is convinced Page has what it takes to be the next Chris Boardman is Hampshire's veteran rider and cycling expert Chris Davies, a well-respected authority on the sport.

"From his schoolboy days his ambition was to become professional and he is certainly dedicated enough to do that," said Chris.

"I remember seeing him at the Schoolboy Road Race Championships. I was standing about a mile from the start and they were going off at minute intervals. By the time he had reached me he had caught his minute man. He was really moving.

"He is good enough to get to Tour standard and maybe in two or three years time we will see him there.

"Kieran is one of the few people whose name I have passed on to the Tour de France commentator Daniel Mangeas - I have not done that for many riders."

Page is already an accomplished track rider but he hankers for the limelight that success on the road can bring.

"The track holds some of my main objective because you can win Olympic medals, Commonwealth and world medals on the track and they are more obtainable because they come around every year.

"Don't get me wrong, they are not easy to come by and you have to be as dedicated to win a track medal as you do on the road.

"In road racing there are hundreds of road professionals out there but there are only a few nations who specifically target the track.

"If I finish my career and I have world, Olympic and Commonwealth medals it means more to the general public and it means my longevity as a personality and sportsman can be increased.

"If you look at people who have won those medals they can carry on making a living from their sport as opposed to being a brickie or gardener. By the time I finish this I will not be good for much else. I will have no diplomas or degrees or anything because your life is completely dedicated to winning those medals," said Page, who has nevertheless managed to squeeze three A-Levels around his training".

Page - who names German Jan Ullrich as his all-time cycling hero - could well end up with a hatful of medals but the one thing he would like to pull over his head more than any is the yellow jersey from the most gruelling race on the planet.

"The Tour de France is the ultimate. That is what you have to aim for. That is the biggest race in the world - so that has to be my target. Whether it is a realistic target is another thing. People do not realise just how selective that race is.

"Not only have you got to be in one of the top 18 teams in the world, you have also got to be in the top nine riders in those 18 teams. To get into that event is a minor miracle in itself. There are very few guys who are good enough to do it and then there are even fewer of them who get the actual opportunity."

Success usually has a cost to it but Kieran is happy to dip out on the social side of life - even at weekends.

"I don't miss it," he said. "As an athlete your life becomes completely dedicated to your sport but it does not seem to matter because it is that you enjoy doing. It's what you live for.

"I would not want to go getting involved in shenanigans every Friday and Saturday night. There's a time and a place for that and it is not in the bike riding world."