As chief executive of one of the cycling industry’s most promising new companies, wheels might well have put her where she is today, but for Beverly Lucas, wings play just as important a part in her life.

The 44-year-old from Sheffield has turned globetrotting into an art form by living in Australia and running a company in the United States. To help bump-up the air miles, she remains close to her family in Sheffield where she grew up and also pays regular visits to the company’s manufacturing facility in Taiwan. All of which must play havoc in terms of jetlag.

“It’s funny. Since the birth of my two children, my body has learned to live on five or six hours’ sleep, so I can get by on that amount and still put in a good ten hours’ work,” Ms Lucas says from Bend in Oregon – her main home for the rest of the year as she works on the global roll-out of Knight Composites.

The company makes carbon bicycle wheels – “The fastest wheels in the world; that statement is actually true.” It launched at the Eurobike trade show in summer 2014 and hit the ground running. Knight Composites turned a “small profit” in its first month of sales and has been doing the same ever since. It has trebled sales forecasts to date. Ms Lucas puts this down to the company ethos which “at the risk of sounding cliched,” is run on the same principle as the wheels it creates, “fast and lightweight. Our overheads are minimal – we don’t have 150 staff and 40 people making management salaries. Jim [Pfeil – co founder], Kevin [Quan – engineer] and I make enough to feed our families and take them out to dinner once in a while.”

Knight’s founders have a cast-iron background in carbon bike components. Ms Lucas played a pivotal role at wheelbuilder Enve Composites and Felt cycles, Jim and Kevin are from Reynolds and Cervelo – all highly regarded names in the industry.

Ms Lucas’s late father, Gary Knight got her into cycling. He died suddenly when she was very young and is the inspiration behind the brand name. She was racing at the age of nine, for Rutland Cycling Club, and was once turned down for a job at Raleigh in Nottingham “for not having sufficient ‘man skills’.” Her lack of progress in the UK bike industry partly led to her move across the Atlantic: “My Mum says she always knew I would move to the US because her cousin did it and I always looked up to her.”

Work as a mechanic and bike shop owner followed. She met and married an American, a pro-team soigneur (massage therapist), had two children (Molly, 11, Cameron, seven), then lost her business and subsequently her husband to the financial crisis. She moved to Australia in the summer of 2012 virtually penniless. “I saw it as making something good out of something bad.” She hadn’t been in Melbourne long before the opportunity arose at (then unnamed) Knight.

Ms Lucas has already proven that the Pacific Ocean is no barrier to running a business: “It’s actually easier to run a global company when you are experienced in living and working in a number of countries,” she explains.

It has all the hallmarks of a logistical nightmare, especially as the company grows into new markets. “I can cover all time zones by scheduling work around my life,” but the key, says Ms Lucas, is technology. “I have my iPhone permanently strapped to my hip, and I was an early adopter of Skype.” The latter comes in particularly handy when dealing with manufacturers in Taiwan, where Knight’s rims are made.

“We went there because these engineers and manufacturers are arguably the best in the world in working with composites,” says Ms Lucas. “We use the best carbon fibre in the world, the same Toray T800 fibres you find in the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.”

It is attention to detail such as this and Knight’s relative value against other brands that have garnered so much attention. It is only six months since the company’s first wheels went on sale at up to £2,200 a pair and distribution is already spread through 25 countries.

It would be easy to think Beverly Lucas has led a blessed life. She is on the face of it the definition of the American dream – she worked hard and she has made it. But her story is one of perseverance. A less driven individual might have packed it all in and gone home to Sheffield.

“A friend suggested I was the J.K. Rowling of the bicycle industry – ‘You’ve been a broke, single mum just trying to do the best for your kids, but you have this magic that makes people happy.’ Sounds pretty cheesy, but if I can continue to have opportunities to bring some mirth and excitement to people then that’s going to keep me in this business for another 20 years.”

In years to come, if her wheels, like her air miles, truly take off, the comparison may stretch a little further.

Five points to global working according to Beverly Lucas

Embrace Technology: Skype is invaluable

Know your timezones: And your trading partners’ business hours

Trust your partners and distributors: Respect their judgement

Focus your business: Keep overheads down

The world is round: You are always in the middle