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Source: Photosport
For a nation obsessed with motoring, whose marquee exports are extremely pricey and powerful hulks of speeding metal and whose drivers generally evince great disdain for anything on fewer than four wheels, Britain is getting pretty keen on cycling.
Winning Olympic medals will do that and London's Olympic Velodrome is a kind of high temple to this newfound fervour.
From a distance, across the barbed wire that encircles the Olympic Park it resembles a slightly twisted wheel. The closer you get the larger it looms, until at the entrance a great wooden horizon curves above you and out to the edge of your vision.
It is warm inside on a cold February day and the athletes are loose and limber. Three hundred and forty have gathered with massive quads, featherlight carbon fibre frames and literally tonnes and tonnes of arifreighted equipment. Some might say they're lucky to have been let through the door.
The head of Team Great Britian, Dave Brailsford has gone on the record saying he is "miffed" that the inaugural test event of the prized Velodrome's capabilities will be an open door affair, welcoming the world's best track cyclists who'll be cranking data on how the new circuit treats them as fast as their SRM hubs can handle.
Brailsford made the comments late last year but in the buzz surrounding the UCI Track World Cup about to commence here, they've resurfaced and put the London Games organisers on the spot today.
There is a lot at stake for the Brits. Team GB produced more medals than any other sport for them in Beijing in 2008.
Cycling is the second-biggest sporting recipient of UK Lottery Board funding, with athletes like Sir Chris Hoy hitting that jackpot for fifteen years now. No need for him to squeeze in 5am training rides so he can rush off to the day job. The least of Team GB has had funding for five years, about the same tenure as some of the stars of New Zealand track cycling.
The head of sport at the London Olympic organising committee said fair play and a desire for a good shakedown trumped any other concern; but perhaps it was a strong desire to break in and speed up a brand new track, so as to ensure the Games produces records as well as medals for the home team.
You get the sense after very little time in London that there is a powerful social programme driving the cycling message.
London mayor Boris Johnson has been responsible for a very popular bike hire scheme to get Londoners pedalling for a pound a day - and a $200 million cost to taxpayers here.
A year after the Games, the London Cycling Festival will once again shut down parts of the city so that 70,000 cyclists can ride free for two days.
The narrow lanes of London boast few cycleways and many lethal choke points. For every unhappy biker warning of the double-decker dangers of aggressive bus drivers, you'll find two motorists moaning about cyclists cutting them off.
But in a city already suffering from marginal air, in a nation fighting the battle of the waistline bulge and shockingly high fuel prices, more and more will surely travel by two wheels instead of four, with or without a little extra Olympic spinning.
