In a five-minute YouTube rant, TV broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson explains why in his view cycling is not only bad for the environment but also causing people from Acton to die of heart attacks.
Speaking on his YouTube channel 'drivetribe', for which he produces content alongside his The Grand Tour co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May, Clarkson shakes his jowls in rage while sitting in Holland Park, London and decrying the apparent plan to pull trees down in order to build a cycle lane.
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"These are trees that the Mayor of London wants to pull down to make way for a cycle lane. The man is obviously deranged, you can't pull trees down so you can cycle," Clarkson says.
"I know that cycle lanes are now seen as the single most important thing in the world by all those lunatics with five hardened bananas on their head and a little GoPro but they're not."
He then goes on to explain how a cycle lane on a main road into London had caused a traffic jam that had held up an ambulance, and not the other cars all causing the congestion.
"I was just coming into London on the A40, they've taken one of the lanes away to make a cycle lane, massive traffic jam resulting from it and stuck in it is an ambulance," Clarkson said. "Someone is dying from a heart attack in Acton, ambulance can't get there in time because they're building a cycle lane. We live in absurd times."
He then goes on to explain how if you eat an avocado after cycling in to work, you'd be doing less damage by driving a truck into work and then not eating an avocado...yeah we're not sure on this one either.
"If when you get to work and you've cycled there, and you need to make up the calories you've lost by cycling and you have an avocado that's been flown from the other side of the world, you'd be better off environmentally going to work in a humvee, and that comes from the Guardian newspaper," Clarkson said.
In a final tirade against the supposed insanity of modern life, Clarkson says the inevitable conclusion of building cycle lanes is building space hopper lanes. It sounds like he needs a lie down.
"And one day they'll say we can't have cycle lanes because everyone's decided bicycles are bad for the environment, which they are by the way, and then we've got to use space hoppers and then we'll need space hopper lanes so everyone can bounce to work."
If you really want to, you can watch the whole video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=181&v=xJZlhECK0Ps
Oddly, in another video uploaded a month earlier to the channel, James May launches a defence of cyclists and calls for an end to "road-sectarianism".
He says "we have enough common enemies like potholes, legislators, bad drivers and bad riders."
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