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Top Gear in St Petersburg (picture - BBC)Top Gear back on Sunday with bike vs electric car and hovercraft challenge in St Petersburg
Top Gear returns to BBC Two this Sunday – and the opening episode of the new series will see Richard Hammond back in the saddle as he attempts to show Jeremy Clarkson and James May once again that a bicycle is the quickest way of getting around a city.
Seven years ago, Hammond cycled flat out in a cross-London dash to City Airport to beat both of his co-hosts, with Clarkson second in a speedboat and May, who drove a Mercedes ML 4x4 pushed into fourth place by The Stig, who took public transport.
This time the action switches to Russia’s second city, St Petersburg. Once again, Hammond will be pedalling, this time a road bike with drop handlebars.
Clarkson is in a hovercraft – floating on a cushion of his own hot air, presumably – and May is in a Renault Twizy electric vehicle. The Stig, meanwhile, is on the city’s metro system.
The episode airs on BBC Two at 8pm this Sunday evening, and for the first time the new season will be launched globally on the same day.
If you missed the London challenge when it screened back in 2008, here are YouTube highlights of it.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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42 comments
I really like Top Gear its much more entertaining than what other programs they produce on the BBC which we are forced to pay for.
And they bring bike into the picture which they didn't have to and clearly he is a keen cyclist himself to be able to ride like that.
I say bring on more cycling into top gear. If they made cycle program as much fun as they do on top gear it will be a blast to watch.
Just watching the new episode. Did I hear him right in saying the whole bike weighs only 860g. Think he needs a new researcher or a proper set of scales.
It was a Pinarello Dogma he was riding so its probably not that far off - especially after he managed to smash off the rear mech when he crashed crossing the tram-lines!
(I've seen 940gr quoted for a 54cm frame Dogma - the hamster would have been on a much smaller frame).
Feel sorry for the Merida MTB he borrowed being described as a lump of soviet pig-iron by James May ... it was clearly Taiwanese alu alloy.
Ah, yes - the frame may have been that light. Just when he said 'it weighs 860g' at the same time as picking it up I thought it was a bit odd. That's about 2 cans of baked beans!
That manoeuvre over the tram lines was an accident waiting to happen (and it did!). Maybe I'm being a bit unfair and there was an element of panic in unfamiliar surroundings but he should really have crossed over the tram lines at a much wider angle - not cycle alongside them and get the front wheel wedged!
At least the license payer can help fund the repair. Ouch!
Well at least this time they've given a seriously nice bike to ride and turned him into a miniature Assos man. Looking forward to seeing the show, don't care about controversy, they make entertaining TV which takes you away from reality for an hour.
The only thing that wasn't "true" about the original cross-London 'race' was the margin of Hammond's victory. Even assuming a very average speed of 12mph or so in traffic, and allowing for the route he took not being the most direct (presumably so that they could film him going past recognisable parts of London), he'd have won by a clear half-hour over the Stig taking public transport, and by even more over May in the 4x4.
Just for the record on the filming part - I'm led to believe that they do as much filming as they can during the actual "races" but they also film other clips 'for effect' before and after - shots where they need to station a camera halfway up a mountain or a hundred yards into a field for a panning shot, that sort of thing.
Can posters and the BBC make their mind up, either Top Gear is a factual program in which case Clarkson should be sacked for the racist scum he is or it's entertainment in which case it should be marketed as such. The program can't keep changing it's type depending upon the criticism levied at it.
It's entertainment first and foremost. Facts are somewhat irrelevant.
They portray themselves as rebels but in reality they are a boorish, infantile part of the establishment. Clarkson is a bully, but his provocative behaviour is a ratings & book sales winner.
http://road.cc/content/news/107809-point-making-rider-hits-back-jeremy-c...
There's no real downside as he only offends people whose opinion he already doesn't care about. I too like Stewart Lee's take on TG (it's on youtube).
Like all media, there is some good stuff but the majority of it is utter dross. It's easy enough to record the few things of interest or watch them online. Or sell the telly and get a life.
How long has Top Gear been going? It's embarrassing to see the pecking order in action, the fawning Hammond, the lording Clarkson. It luridly lurches from compulsive to repulsive.
Best watched when you're doing something else.
AND WHY DO THEY ALWAYS TALK IN CAPITAL LETTERS?
'Mrs Brown's Boys is shit and should be banned.'
FTFY.
Cars were my first love before bikes - Top Gear before the 2002 re-brand was dull. No one cares what a journalist thinks of the latest Ford Fiesta. If you want to find out what it's like go and test drive one.
I won't get to drive a Ferrari or any other supercar (unless my numbers come up on Saturday) to it's full potential and 'drive a supercar' gift days are so limited in how far you can push them it's not worth doing. Therefore I enjoy seeing what they do with the cars, they are three middle aged men pratting about in the best cars (and machines) ever built and I so wish I had their job rather than sitting here typing this on my lunch break.
The race across London is one of my favourite episodes (pre-arranged results or not) and I found the cycling campaign episode quite amusing. Chris Boardman would have known from the beginning he was there to be set-up and I think he played along brilliantly. Anyone believing Clarkson et al believe everything they say is missing the point. It's designed to be controversial, it sells more episodes around the world and keeps them in the news. It's very clever.
Firstly - It is OK to enjoy Top Gear (or any other program) without having to agree with everything they say.
Secondly - are Top Gear really that 'anti-cyclist'? Yes the program may well appeal to that demographic, but it not the same thing as promoting that demographic...
Top Gear is a bit like Father Christmas - Yes we do know its preposterous and fake, its just more fun if you go along with the fantasy.
Who is Stephen Lee?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Lee?
To those who find the challenges boring, fake, whatever.
Watch this, and if you don't feel a tinge of emotion whilst watching it, you're dead inside.
The fun starts about 8 minutes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdrlWR-yFM
This one's great
And there was me thinking that they had a highly skilled production team that know how to put the cameras at the right places at the right times.
No-one actually thinks these "races" and other "challenges" are real do they? It's a series of set up shots for the cameras. You could never have a real race and get decent footage of it all when it's happening simultaneously without a ridiculous number of cameras. Besides, a race on UK roads wouldn't be legal I think.
Steady on old chap. You'll be telling us next that Santa is really your dad and the presents came from Argos.
Top Gear reinvented itself into the current format in 2002. It was great for a while, but now in its 22nd series I have to say I find it tedious; in fact I'd say its boring. Its like watch re-runs of Men Behaving Badly (a show I used to love). The jokes are the same, the format is the same, features are the same. I just don't find it entertaining any more. Sure, the cars change, but the show isn't really about cars, its about three middle aged men pratting about.
Whatever my opinion, its still massively popular worldwide and a huge cash cow for Clarkson and the BBC, so its going to be around for a while yet.
I'm not a driver nor do I hold a licence to do so but I find Top Gear very entertaining. Because that's what it is - entertainment. I'm astonished at how many people find it offensive when it's anything but.
There aren't many things more opinionated and less funny than Jeremy Clarkson. But Stephen Lee gives him a damn good run for his money.
How do they know that I don't have a company car, a privately owned 4x4 (so I probably pay more "road tax") and a healthy stable of bikes, that I don't ocassionally use public transport or often walk?
Work even harder and buy both!
It's entertainment and escapism, and ever so slightly controversial.
'How anti-bike is Top Gear?'
They're anti-everything, aren't they?
When the dog bites or the bee stings, I simply Google Stewart Lee Top Gear, and then I don't feel so bad.
How anti-bike is Top Gear?
In any Top Gear challenge involving a cycle, has the car ever won? Don't think so!
How anti-bike are May and Clarkson?
Both have written articles actively supporting cycling.
So how much of Top Gear therefore is to provoke a reaction?
Top Gear is entertainment NOT news or a documentary. One last point - The BBC don't make Top Gear, this is why Clarkson can't be sacked.
It was actually the day after the episode that someone tailgated me beeping their horn, and during the inevitable punishment pass yelled 'work harder, buy a car'. Yes they do not actually say do stuff like this, but their attitude fuels a culture that makes it more dangerous for cyclists on the road. So I don't care what their actual beliefs are, as their actions encourage people to put my life at risk.
And I suppose "video nasties" encourage violence and murder, and computer games encourage illegal gun use?
Yes and Mrs Brown's Boys encourages men to cross dress and should be banned. That's exactly my argument, and it was totally harpooned by your incisive comment. Don't I feel quite the fool.
This annoys me... I am not sure if I am more annoyed at the average intelligence of society, or those that continue to spout their supposed tongue in cheek dialogue to an audience they must know can't separate fact from fiction.
I enjoy Top Gear, but I know in doing so, I am fueling the anti-cyclist sentiment present in our society.
Its the same way that you can't really enjoy any humour based on inappropriate attitudes... you get the joke, the joke is the inappropriateness of it all... but there is always some stupid sod who just sees the joke as a confirmation of their internal beliefs.
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