Ace Face (Of Mallorca): Bradley Wiggins

The Style Council made some rotten videos. So rotten were they, that you have to assume they were deliberate. The most rotten (and obscure) was one for "My Ever Changing Moods". Weller and Talbot were lycra-ed up and engaged in a cycle race. It was rubbish, unlike the song. It was postmodernist irony maybe, though the irony was lost on me.

The Modfather on a bike, though, was apt. Apt for the new Modfather on a bike. The biker with burns. The retro roader. Bradley Wiggins, Brad Wiggins, Wiggo, Wiggy; he sounds as though he could have been in The Jam or The Style Council. The nearest to a Wiggo who was (is) in the pop-music business was Pete Wiggs of the ultimate retro dance group Saint Etienne. More aptness; Saint Etienne, which became eponymous in a musical context because of the football club, and just north of where Stage 12 finished. Of the Tour de France.

Musically, the Tour de France has only ever been done by German postmodernists. Kraftwerk. But, with the short hair, the sharp suits, Kraftwerk could have been electro-Mod. Everything comes around in creating a coincidence of synchronicity, itself with a Mod motif: Sting, the Ace Face of "Quadrophenia" - Pete Townshend and The Who's paean to the Mods - and the composer of "Synchronicity".

Bradley Wiggins' affinity for Modism and Paul Weller in particular has been well-chronicled. It's stretching things to suggest that Wiggins' success makes cycling the new rock 'n' roll, but his success does highlight a commonality with his musical hero. Wiggins, and Mark Cavendish come to that, has attitude. He is edgy. He has given cycling a profile among the British that a more conventional figure such as Chris Hoy, or Chris Boardman twenty-odd years ago, could not have managed.

At the same time, however, he has revealed the extent to which he wants to be seen as a role model. This doesn't come across as the self-important narcissism of a braggart but as coming genuinely from the heart. He is a character many times over, a true sporting hero among many who are held up as being so but who are anything but heroic.

Wiggins, as has also been well-chronicled, has an affinity for Mallorca. His association with Puerto Pollensa and Puerto Alcúdia is such that he is almost claimed as one of our own. As Humphrey Carter in his "Daily Bulletin" leader yesterday alluded to, the Balearics tourism ministry should be looking at how this claim can be turned into promotional gold.

Cycling, as much if not more than golf, is the mainstay of Mallorca's off-season tourism. Not every cyclist is a Wiggins or a Cavendish, not every team that comes to Mallorca in the winter to train is Team Sky, not everyone who comes to Mallorca in winter, or who might come, is necessarily a cyclist, but association is what counts. Alcúdia, home to Team Sky; the Tour de France, trained in Mallorca. And there is probably more association to be forged thanks to the Olympics.

The great white hope of winter tourism, namely sports tourism, will have its forum this October. If they haven't already, the ministerial organisers should consider seeing if Wiggins and Team Sky are available for some promotion to coincide with the forum. (As an aside, it is satisfying to note that Judge Castro, in charge of the "caso Palma Arena" corruption investigations, has made an association similar to the one I made in a previous article in respect of this forum and has requested sight of the budget. It is said that the forum in October will be costing 80,000 euros, massively less than the 1.2 million euros that a similar event arranged by the Duke of Palma's organisation did.)

The forum offers a golden opportunity. Wiggins may seem an unlikely "face" of Mallorca, but only because he doesn't conform to the norm. Yet, that quirky mix of role model, attitude and retro might be highly appropriate. Mallorca, the model for other destinations to aspire to, one with a touch of swagger, arrogance even that comes from a new-found self-belief (one can but hope), and one with retro holiday brought up to date for the modern world: "This Is The Modern World" for the brave new world of Mallorca's tourism.

And that unlikely face, the Ace Face of cycling's Modism, will be spied now and then, as he has been before, taking a coffee at Puerto Pollensa's Cappuccino or 1919. More aptness. The Modfather of cycling to the Modfather himself whose Style Council alter ego was that of The Cappuccino Kid.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.