The celebrity chef James Martin – the Yorkshire one off Saturday Kitchen who puts butter in everything – has incurred the wrath of cyclists including Bradley Wiggins after writing a cyclist-baiting article in the Mail on Sunday.

Martin, who moonlights as a motoring correspondent for the paper, wrote this weekend of his hatred for "herbal tea-drinking, Harriet Harman-voting" cyclists (surely we Guardian types have copyright on such insults?) He was fed up, he said, of the "city-boy ponces in fluorescent Spider-Man outfits, shades, bum bags and stupid cleated shoes" who pedal around the lanes near his country residence "with their private parts alarmingly apparent."

So far, so predictable. But in a review of the Tesla electric car this Sunday, he went further, gleefully describing how he had utilised the speedy and silent approach of his test vehicle to sneak up on a pack of weekend cyclists, honk his horn and drive them off the road. "The look of sheer terror as they tottered into the hedge was the best thing I've ever seen in my rear-view mirror," he wrote.

Yesterday, the cycling community launched a counter attack. Tour de France sprinting ace Robbie McEwen urged everyone to "either key [Martin's] car or punch him in the face"; Taylor Phinney, the US world champion, called him a "douche bag". Most bruisingly of all, Bradley Wiggins, the Olympic gold medallist, tweeted that he had always preferred rival cooking show Something For The Weekend anyway.

Tesla, which loaned Martin the car, wasn't happy either. "In this case, we're not even using it [linking to the review from our site]. It is really odd. I have to sadly admit this is not the first time a journalist in the UK has brought up this issue of wheatgrass-eating hippies riding bikes. [But] this is definitely the most extreme version of it," Rachel Konrad, Tesla's communications manager, told the FredCast cycling podcast.

Before long, Martin's Wikipedia entry had been hacked, the Daily Mail website had removed the facility to comment on the story so that no one else could call him a moron and cyclists' organisation the CTC had waded in, urging the cyclists terrorised by Martin to contact the organisation's accident line. An inevitable Facebook group was formed, with over 1,000 people signing up to declare I Hate James Martin, and dozens of angry cyclists began to bombard his agent and publisher with emails.

Wiggins' wife, Cath, announced she had written to the Press Complaints Commission and urged everyone else to do the same until Martin apologised. She might have some success: when the Times columnist Matthew Parris fantasised about decapitating cyclists with piano wire a few years back, he was forced to say sorry by angry readers.

When the Guardian contacted Martin yesterday, he declined to comment, but a source close to him said he was only joking – it was "a humorous piece like Clarkson and caravans" apparently.

I must admit I quite like Martin. I got his book on puddings for my birthday the other year – the pear tart is a winner – but picking on cyclists is pretty lazy way to get a laugh.

Did you find it funny? Should cyclists stop taking themselves so seriously and not take the bait for once, or were Martin's views "both offensive and dangerous to cyclists", as the CTC suggests?

• 4.45pm Update: James Martin has published an apology on his website. It reads:

Regarding the The Tesla Roadster Article...

May I take this opportunity to apologize [sic] for any offence I have caused through the article in last weekend's Mail on Sunday. It was never my intention to offend the many cyclists who share our roads across the country. What was intended to be a humorous piece was clearly misjudged. Further more I do not condone any form of reckless driving. Once again, I am sincerely sorry for any upset caused in relation to this article. James Martin

• This article was amended on Wednesday 16 September 2009. We said Matthew Parris was forced by the Press Complaints Commission to apologise for an article about decapitating cyclists with piano wire. In fact the commission said its code had not been breached by the article. This has been corrected.