Was that the worst day I've had on a mountain bike? Probably not, butit sure felt like it

Ontario Cup, Round 2: Mansfield Outdoor Centre

Well that was one of the worst days I've experienced on a mountain bike. That's all I could think throughout the race and even after I had finished and looking back now a few days later I'm having to really dig deep into the memory bank to remember anything worse. They say the body forgets pain quite quickly hence why people run marathons again, why woman give birth a second time and why I continue to enter these races, and so with that in mind maybe I have had worse, in fact I am sure I have and I've simply forgotten about it, a mechanism of the brain that allowed me to enter on Sunday.

It didn't help that I arrived a little later than I'd have liked. My wife and baby daughter had come along for the day out and as is apt to happen when you bring a baby anywhere, things come up you don't expect and you never arrive anywhere on time. As a result I got time for a five minute warm-up at best ... just a chance to run the old ticker up to about 150 beats per minute and back down again before taking to the cattle grid of my category ready to be shuffled forward to the start line and out into the misery.

And I knew what was coming. I'd done this course last year and it was starting in the exact same place: At the bottom of a steep climb. Probably only about 600 meters in length but one that got gradually steeper the longer it went and with an average gradient of 8 percent. When you're faced with something like that then you had better well of warmed up or you're going to get a nasty kick in the lungs when it comes time to start racing.

Man of the Ras

The final day was no gift, it was still incredibly fast and it was over 144.6 kilometres from Naas to Skerries, but with the adrenaline of knowing that every mile that ticked by was one mile closer to a finishing, we got by perhaps a little easier than in days before. The pace was intense on the final circuits but I found a group I was comfortable with and even had the legs to join in the sprint for the line. After all, the entire thing had been flat out for eight days so why finish any other way?

We went up on the stage as a team to pick up our medals for finishing and in collecting those medals we officially became Men of the Ras. I may have only finished 118th overall from the 129 that did finish, but finish I did. 51 didn't make it to Skerries. I was 1 hour, 39 minutes and 48 seconds behind the winner, Marcin Bialoblocki of Poland, but he's a professional and I'm an amateur who will be back in work tomorrow and setting out on this Ras the challenge was to get to the finish, and I did. In all I spent 28 hours, 46 minutes and 23 seconds in the saddle completing the 1,180.5 kilometre course, the most I have ever cycled in a week by quite a stretch.

All four of us on the Down Chain Reaction team made it to the finish and we were the only team to complete the Ras in which every member of the team was a member of the North Down Cycling Club. No guest riders here.

I look forward to a bit of a rest now and to enjoying some food I might not otherwise have been permitted to take during this race. Then I'll hope to take the form and fitness I've built from the Ras into the rest of the season and see where it takes me.

Nibali and Cav the men of a hard mans Giro

Sunday was a victory lap for Vincenzo Nibali. He coasted into Brescia with the Pink jersey over his shoulders and over the line to seal his victory in this years Giro d'Italia. The only thing that really stood in his way today was a crash that wouldn't allow him to finish; his two consecutive wins on Thursday and Saturday gave him a commanding lead that was never going to be in doubt today.

Not that an uncommanding lead would have been challenged on the final day. So long as the last day of a Grand Tour is a road race it'll tend to go uncontested by the big favorites. The only way we might have seen Nibali in the mix was if he were to dare to take on Mark Cavendish for the Red jersey points prize which Nibali was in the lead of going into Sunday's stage.

Of course he would never have stood a chance against Cav in a bunch sprint ... not even the other sprinters can hold a candle to the man from the Isle of Man, and so Nibali didn't risk it. He respected Cav's sprinting enough through these three weeks that seen Cav win five stages (including Sunday's) to understand that Cav was the more deserving winner of that prize. Pink is more Nibali's style.

A scene for the ages: Vincenzo Nibali rides alone through the snow to an epic win at the iconic Tre Cime di Lavaredo

The defining image of the 2013 Giro d'Italia and one that'll go into cycling history. Photograph: Sirotti

Yesterday I previewed this stage by talking about the day in 1968 when a young Eddy Merckx made the Tre Cime di Lavaredo climb iconic by attacking alone in the snow and riding to glory in what was his first Grand Tour victory. I titled that article, 'Memories of Merckx'. Fast forward 45 years and we had a real flashback as to what that day must have looked like, just in the place of Merckx in his World Champions jersey was Italian Vincenzo Nibali in the Pink jersey ramming home his dominance over this race by doing just what Merckx did and soloing to victory in the most atrocious of conditions for a win that will go down in Giro legend. It could well be titled, 'Shades of Merckx'.

Unlike Merckx in 1968, Nibali had no need to go on the attack to try and seize the race. He was already four minutes in charge before the day began and could simply have marked his rivals up the climb for glory. But true glory doesn't come about by doing that ... sure he would be the winner and he'd have the stage win from the day before and he'd still be a great champion, and many others would have gone conservative, but Nibali knew that to become a true legend he would have to destroy his rivals and win upon that famous mountain. Being the first to the top in the Pink jersey would truly mark his authority and doing it in these conditions would make him a hero in his home country.

He attacked with 2.5 kiloemtres to go on gradients that pushed 18% at times and rarely fell below 10%. His attack was more a turning of the screw than an out and out acceleration, but when he moved, nobody could follow. With the snow falling and the conditions getting worse and worse near the top he continued to build an advantage. The rest behind were in another race. Surrounded by wild, passionate and at times over excited Italian fans -- some clearly drunk and topless in the sub-zero temperatures running alongside and leaving me watching in fear that one was about to fall under the wheel of Nibali -- the 29 year old pressed on.

Punctures, punctures, punctures

I may have led some to believe over the course of this blog that the worst thing can befall a racing cyclist is a head-wind, a side-wind perhaps, rain, cold, or blowing up on a climb and seeing the bunch disappear into the distance. It's not. The worst thing is a mechanical issue. That can destroy your race when your body is still OK to continue. So far in this Ras I have had no issues with my bike, I hadn't even had a puncture ... until today.

What is it they say about buses? You wait around all day for one and then two come along at once? Well, in cycling -- for me at least -- the phrase for punctures is that you wait for that dreaded feeling on the surface below your bike for six days and then three come along at once.

I was hurting again this morning, as is becoming the norm at this stage of the Ras, and for the first 45 minutes or so I was having it tough, but then came the puncture and the 'having it tough' went to a new level. It happened it the worst possible place -- the bottom of the first climb. I quickly put it in an easy gear, jumped off and flagged down the neutral service vehicle for a spare wheel. Within seconds they had me back and running but I was now a bit off the back. Chasing the bunch on a hill is not my strong point so I really had to bury myself to keep in contact. Some of the team cards were good at giving me a bit of a tow and just as we turned left for the final bit of the climb and I was about to regain contact ... BANG. Puncture number two.

Memories of Merckx at Tre Cime di Lavaredo

Despite the route being changed tomorrow and a number of the climbs being taken out, it's still set to be an epic stage in the Giro d'Italia thanks to the races finish at the iconic Tre Cime di Lavaredo. It's a climb made famous by a young Eddy Merckx who won up there in 1968 en route to crushing a field of established veterans by 5 minutes overall.

An extract from the book, "The Story of the Giro d'Italia", Volume 1 tells the story of that day on stage 12 when Merckx -- at just 22 years of age but already the reigning World Champion and winner of the Paris-Roubaix, not to mention past winner of the Milan - San Remo (twice), Gent–Wevelgem and Flèche Wallonne -- announced himself to the world as a Grand Tour rider and one capiable of winning every kind of race in what would become the greatest cycling career we've ever seen. As you'll see, the conditions then sound very much like the kind of conditions we can expect tomorrow...

Ever heard the one about the cyclist visiting a doctor?

The headaches started last night closely followed by a sore throat. Five days into this thing and the immune system is starting to reject what the body is throwing at it. I woke up out of a slumber to the horrific sound of the alarm clock once again this morning and the last thing I wanted to think about was the unavoidable spectre of four more hours on the saddle. I needed to see a doctor.

Now, before you start leaping to conclusions by putting together the words cyclist, doctor, and medicine, this trip was strictly above board. He was the race doctor, there was no drip, certainly no needles and I came away with something to help my headache and throat but nothing that will help the legs.

The stage itself was flat for a long while before all the hills came to great us near the finish, but for the first 45 minutes I felt awful, doing my best not to throw up whatever was left in my stomach onto the riders around me. Thankfully I was able to hang in ok and gradually I came around, beginning to feel slowly better, or as better as one can expect to be in such conditions.