[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3fDXsPE0Sc]
What ya doing mate? Put down the Guinness, we have a friggin’ conumdrum to discuss.
How the effing hell to explain this thing? Bradley Wiggins leaving Garmin for Sky. Sky’s the limitation, right?
We decided to consult a true expert. Someone who has this all sussed out because he’s had Bradley’s ear for decades. All Mod Cons philosopher and song writer Paul Weller of the famous 80’s English band, The Jam.
Say what you like ’cause I don’t care
I know where I am and going to
It’s somewhere I won’t preview
Don’t have to explain myself to you
I don’t give two fucks about your review.
Okay, fog lifting, right? Did that sort of clear things up, put some logic and perspective on Bradley’s move to Sky — because Twisted Spoke is at a loss. And if you must know, that doesn’t happen very often.
Most journalists expected Wiggins would stay at Garmin. That whatever the obvious lures — British team, warm beer, Cockney accent, The Jam playing in the team bus — Wiggo would honor the last year of his contract as a thank-you if nothing else.
But luv, it’s like this, right? A bloke forgets where he’s been, a bloke forgets his friends, and Sky starts playing the Wiggins anthem with horns and suddenly there’s only an inflated ego and inflated salary.
You see, it’s not a cycling question, it’s a musical one. It’s just rock n roll, anger and passion and naive stupidity and the joyful exuberance of life. Or to sum it up another way, Mr. Weller again.
And all the time we’re getting rich,
You hang around to help me out
But when we’re skint, Oh God Forbid!
You drop us like hot bricks.
Garmin as hot brick. Does that sound like an exit strategy to you? Right you are, cuddles. The Jam’s Paul Weller is the man to go to if you want to know what’s up with Wiggins. He’s been Down In The Tubestation At Midnight, he’s been in A Town Called Malice. He’s not much for climbing intervals but he’s bloody insighful.
Baby, baby, baby I’ve changed my address
I didn’t mean to make you cry but I know it’s for the best
Baby, baby, baby I’ve changed my address.
Sad but true and so obvious — had argyle genius Jonathan Vaughters simply listened to a few Jam CD’s, he’d have known Wiggo was gonna fly. Bradley traded his blue and orange diamonds for a pile of euros.
And yet Garmin was everything Wiggins needed to flourish. Nobody argued his talent was there but it was Garmin that brought it out, inspired and nurtured Wiggins abilities. Garmin mate and friend David Millar said much the same today and questioned Wiggins’ greed.
It was the same culture that took a career domestique in Christian Vande Velde and turned him into a serious tour contender. Vaughters has the Midas touch. Like Bjarne Riis with Tyler Hamilton, Ivan Basso and later Carlos Sastre, Vaughters and Garmin took Wiggins into the fold and remade him.
Much will be written, theorized and debated about the great Wiggins escape but Paul Weller, like a Socrates on a bike, has the final answer.
They all ignore me ’cause they don’t know
I’m really a spaceman from those UFOs
Strange town
Break it up
Baby don’t shake it up
Break it up
Now you know, right? Clear as day, crystal, brilliant, effing didactically obvious. You understand the subtleties — you just got a few pints of wisdom. You have it on higher authority, man. Mr Weller, he set things to right.
What I want to say – but my words just fail
Is that I need it so I can’t help myself
Like a hungry child – I just help myself
And when I’m all full up – I go out to play
In the end it comes down to that: Wiggins couldn’t help himself, he was the hungry child and Sky held out the big check. Where does that leave Vaughters and Team Garmin now that their best Tour rider dumped them at the last minute? Paul Weller is a fountain of wisdom when it comes to ugly transfers.
And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end
That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names
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