Many Vineyarders have been treated to the sight: You’re driving north along Old County Road and up ahead you spot a shiny yellow, banana-shaped metal pod — looks a bit like a small rocket ship that failed to achieve liftoff — trundling along at 35 miles an hour. A head clad in a bicycle helmet pokes out of the top. Will you pass him? Well, he’s doing the posted speed limit and, what’s that up ahead? It’s another yellow bomber! At the straightaway past Old Stage Road the encapsulated riders zoom ahead. You might say they leave you in their dust, but the two machines kick up no more debris than your average mountain bike.

Vineyard residents David Whitmon, carpenter, master mechanic, longtime bicycle advocate, and Myron Garfinkle, entrepreneur, pilot and yoga instructor, have brought the European velomobile to our shores. Mr. Whitmon may even have been the first to inaugurate wheels-up for the velo in North America.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in late November, this reporter caught up with the velonauts in Mr. Garfinkle’s airplane hanger out at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport. Seated on leather divans in a loft/office above two velos and a gorgeous Cirrus single-engine four-seater plane, the men outlined the sagas that brought these amazing machines to the Island.

Mr. Whitmon, bearded, bandana wearing, tall and rangy, grew up in Falls Church, Va. In 1983, a friend brought him for a long weekend to a place he’d never heard of — Martha’s Vineyard. They stayed in the youth hostel and tooled around the Island in a state of bliss. Back home on the freeway, heading pell-mell to his construction job, he mused: “This is no way to live.” He gave his boss a two-day notice and traveled back to the Island, this time for keeps. Familiar story?

At the age of 34 Mr. Whitmon began to ride bicycles to save his knees. “Doctors wanted to operate, but I called up Cycle Works [in Vineyard Haven, owned by John Stevenson] and started riding and working in the shop.”

For many years Vineyarders observed Mr. Whitmon as he commandeered a homemade bike with three seats for him and his two young daughters. When later the girls lost interest in cycling, Mr. Whitmon placed ads for grownup biking buddies. He went on to create the Vineyard Off-road Bicycling Association, and was tapped by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to oversee all matters bicycle-and-bike-path related. “Mostly I’m their resident pain-in-the-butt,” he says with good cheer.

Some years back, Mr. Whitmon glimpsed YouTube videos of the lightweight carbon fiber and aluminum velos that showed up in Europe some eleven years ago. Instantly he was hooked. But these recumbent bikes, fully enclosed and exquisitely, aerodynamically designed to whiz ahead on pedal-power, are priced from $4,000 to $15,000. In time, Mr. Whitmon learned of a machinist in Canada working to obtain licensing for one of the velo models, the Quest. Using money from a divorce settlement and the refinancing of his house, Mr. Whitmon paid $7,000 for one of the first velos to roll out of the Toronto workshop.

After 12 months of pedaling his own ground rocket, both on and off-Island, his speedometer cha-chinged at 7,000 miles. He loves to take a spin at night through the state forest, aided both by the light of the moon and the 800-lumen light on the nose of his vehicle. On a recent Saturday evening, he clocked 52 miles, from West Tisbury down to Katama, then up and around again. “It’s all about my mental health,” he affirms.

Or, as Mr. Garfinkle raves about his first velo ride: “I was smiling so much my jaws hurt.”

Mr. Garfinkle grew up in Norwalk, Conn., and had the good fortune to retire at the age of 32. He built his house in West Tisbury in the late 1990s and moved here year-round four years ago, along with his future wife, Cathy (they married a speck over a year ago). Cathy has a daughter who is 15, Myron a son who is 21. And of course there’s the Cirrus. Mr. Garfinkle has zipped around northeastern skies for the past 10 years. “I fly off the Island at least twice a week,” he says. “It’s only a 45- minute hop to Connecticut, but often we’ll go farther, say to Nova Scotia. This winter we’re planning a trip to Costa Rica.”

On terra firma, Mr. Garfinkle’s favored mode of transportation is the bicycle, although he’s not averse to using his car; last April as he motored along the West Tisbury Road, he spied an astonishing sight: Mr. Whitmon whipping over the bike path in his velo. Fascinated, Mr. Garfinkle took copious pictures from every angle. Then he followed the velonaut all the way home, banking up behind him in the driveway. After an ecstatic two hours of conversation about the magic machine, he had to have one of his own.

He scrutinized the Internet, then splurged on a WAW made in Belgium. His passion for the WAW was so complete, he began his own business of importing the line to the USA. The second Island velo owner loves the dual convenience and daredeviltry of the vehicle: “You can hand the boys [the high-speed bike racers] their hat in a race and still go out grocery shopping afterwards,” he said.

The velonauts assiduously fuel themselves even as their legs fuel their vehicles. “You burn a ton of calories,” said Mr. Garfinkle. “You’re expending one third of the effort of regular bicycling, which is why you can roll out a 40-mile ride, no problem. But you do have to keep yourself topped off.” As they churn the roads, they fire their own human engines with jugs of Cytomax, bananas and energy bars. Often on longer hauls, Mr. Whitmon brings a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, a loaf of bread and a knife: PBJs in motion.

Both riders lobby for better bike paths to make velocycling, long distance bicycling, and other revolutionary forms of human-powered vehicles part of our greener world. A superior bike trail, in their opinion, is the Shining Sea Path running from Woods Holes up to Route 151. “It’s 10 feet wide and it has a line down the middle,” said Mr. Whitmon. “Plus it’s free of the constant curb cuts that you find along some of our routes, especially on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, which I prefer to avoid.”

Now you know you’re not hallucinating when you behold the screaming yellow velos on Island roads and trails.

Both Mr. Whitmon and Mr. Garfinkle declare that most passersby in their cars give them broad grins and thumbs-up. When the vehicular Odd Couple stops and pops out of their cockpits, they’re mobbed by curiosity seekers with scores of questions.

We’ve seen the future and it’s bright yellow.

To learn more, log on to bluevelo.com or go on YouTube to see velo videos.

Gazette contributor Holly Nadler lives in Oak Bluffs.