SOUTH Hams cyclist Yanto Barker is taking part in what he described as 'the race of his life'.

The 32-year-old British rider with Team UK Youth is hoping that he can put in a top 10 performance in front of a home crowd when he competes in this year's Tour of Britain.

The professional racing cyclist, who fell in love with the sport as a teenager riding his bike on roads around the South Hams, will be among an international field taking part in Britain's premier cycle race.

The eight-stage event, which started in Ipswich on Sunday will take the riders – among them four-time Olympic gold medalist and Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins – across 760 miles over eight days.

Tomorrow's Devon stage will see riders cover virtually the length of the county, starting in Barnstaple and taking in Dartmoor National Park before finishing in Dartmouth 106 miles later.

The race will pass through Buckfastleigh, Kingsbridge, Torcross and Stoke Fleming on its Westcountry stage.

'My cycling life didn't begin until I got to Devon,' said Yanto, who was born in Carmarthen, Wales, but moved to Littlehempston when he was about 12 years old, and went to the Steiner School in Dartington for four years.

'In terms of my cycling home, Devon is it, definitely, and Totnes specifically.

'From Tavistock and that area all the way across to Kingsbridge is basically where I began my whole cycling life.

'I can't express how exciting it is be to riding and racing against a Tour de France winner, a world champion and some of my other friends on the roads that I trained on as a kid where I took my mountain bike out and used to disappear for three of four hours at a time. It was the first sense of freedom that you get as a kid, to hop on a bike and just go off.'

Speaking from London, where he combines cycling with running his own cycling clothing company called Le Col, Yanto said the tour had added significance as he would be riding alongside fellow competitor and friend Jeremy Hunt, who also lived in Dartington.

Yanto and Jeremy, of Team Sky, both rode for the Mid-Devon Cycling Club while growing up in the county.

'We trained together and he was quite influential in me taking cycling up full -time,' said Yanto.

'I recently looked back at all my first biking experiences and eight-out-of-ten of them were probably negative, but I kind of pushed on through anyway and it has been a very rewarding career for me in lots of ways.'

Having won the British National Junior Road Race Championships, he was selected to ride for Great Britain at the age of 19.

He turned professional in 2000 and enjoyed success in France, winning prestigious Mavic Cup races and stages in races such as the Circuit Des Mines. In 2006, he represented Wales at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia.

Yanto was the highest placed British finisher in the 2005 Tour of Britain, taking eighth place.

He said competing in front of a home crowd – including his parents, whose home is at Huxhams Cross, Dartington, and his two sisters who live nearby – would be an added incentive to climb the hard-going Devon hills.

'We did the tour series in Torquay this summer on the seafront and I was amazed at how many people were shouting my name around the circuit,' he said. It was a real privilege and I felt very special.

'The tour will have genuine world-class bike riders and to be able to be in the front group on the hardest stages will be a major achievement for any British based professional.

'I might not be the winner, but I would love to be in the top 10 on that day. It would be an amazing achievement in that kind of company.'

Ahead of Sunday's start, Mark Cavendish of Sky Pro Cycling and a teammate of Bradley Wiggins, said: 'It is going to be great to have myself and Brad who has won the Tour de France here in the Tour of Britain.

'I don't think there has been a Tour de France winner here at the Tour of Britain and to have Brad and the rainbow jersey in the Tour of Britain, and there are four of us in the team that have completed the tour this year, the crowds are going to be incredible and the race is always spectacular.

He added: 'To see the evolution of cycling in this country, makes me proud to be a cyclist and beautiful to see and makes me proud to be a cyclist and to be British. In 2007, we saw probably the greatest Grand Depart (Tour de France) that I remember and I don't think there has been a circuit with so many people like there was at the Olympic road race with a million people.

'We have stages in the Tour of Britain all-round the country, starting in Suffolk and finishing in Surrey and I think we'll see a lot of people out watching the race and understanding what this cycling malarkey is about.'