It’s one to bore the grandchildren with – the day you were right there when Nibali joined the Greats on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo.
‘Epic’ doesn’t do it justice; there was a full fledged blizzard raging for the finale – it was as if the Giro organisers had tee-ed it up.
But it wasn’t just Vincenzo who deserves the plaudits, every finisher down to last man home, Sacha Modolo deserves huge respect.
We drove race route and the raging melt waters on the way up the valleys gave a clue as to what was coming.
The countryside is beautiful in the north and there’s history all around you.
By 50 K to go we were seriously into the mountains with the real ‘death climbing’ starting at 20 K to go out of a subdued and freezing Cortina.
The Tre Cime road rears from already high altitude and – when you can see them – is one of the world’s great sights.
On the way up we stopped so as I could take a picture; before we knew it we had three new amigos in the back seat, unable to believe their luck that they were going to get to the top – civilian cars don’t get anywhere near the finale.
The scene was 100% Winter Wonderland, albeit we thought that sun might just break through – that was wishful thinking as a full blown winter storm raged in.