Pedal medal pair tell the nation to get on their bikes

Cambridge graduate Pooley said: "I just love riding and I hope people were watching back home and that a few more people will take up cycling because of this.

"I hope it inspires people because cycling - not just competitive cycling - is so much fun and I can tell you I wouldn't do this at all unless I really enjoyed it.

"This is a great time for cycling. It's just getting more popular all the time, becoming more of a way of life again what with green issues and because petrol prices are rising," added the Wandsworth-born rider.

Cooke, the road race gold medallist, took up the theme too, saying: "I hope our medals help raise the profile of the sport for everyone. I remember when they made the announcement for London 2012 and I was with a load of other athletes at the Institute of Sport getting treatment for an injury and at a bit of a low.

"But then the place went absolutely wild when the decision was given and there were people jumping around everwhere - even the athletes who would have been too old to compete there. It will be so good for us to ride in front of the home crowds in 2012. It's such an exciting time for cycling."

And very possibly it's about to get more exciting as the attention now shifts from the roads to the Laoshan veldodrome, where the five-day programme of track events could see Team GB bag an unprecedented harvest of medals, eclipsing the four they won in Athens. It all kicks off with the men's team sprint tomorrow.

Pooley said she would head down the track as often as possible to cheer them on: "Our medals on the road were much harder to predict but I can see why the track team would get bigged up because they know they have very, very good medal chances. I met the track team down at the holding camp in Newport and found them really friendly and incredibly impressive athletes."

The main opposition for the track team, with expectations even higher following the road successes, could prove to be just the pressure of favouritism but Dave Brailsford, British cycling's performance director, dismisses the notion.

He said: "We're not under pressure; pressure is a concept of everybody else's imagination."

The team sprint, led by Chris Hoy, is the first medal event to be contested while on Saturday, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Hoy are likely to start hot favourites in the individual pursuit and keirin events.