So, after three weeks of rain, uphill scenery and people saying 'rosa' instead of pink, the Giro d'Italia has come to an end. And what a result! How fitting that, in a year when the Corsa Rosa visited the Emerald Isle for the first time, it should be won by an Irishman. Yes, young Niall Quinn Tana scaled the Stelvio faster than a leprechaun up a greasy rainbow to claim a famous victory, bringing joy to his countrymen everywhere from Bogotá to the Bog of Allen. Bullaí fir, Niall!
Nationalism really brings out the worst in some people...
Nairo Quintana may be Colombian, but since the Giro was visiting my homeland I decided to take a trip to Belfast for the Grande Partenza a few weeks ago. Here are some impressions from the time Ireland won - sorry, hosted - the Giro d'Italia.
Friday 9 May: Stage 1, Belfast team time trial
Arriving at Belfast International is a bit of a treat for people who don't like shuffling through airports for hours. Barely three minutes after stepping off the plane - and without even the chance to flash my passport - I am disgorged through the airport doors into the wilds of Antrim. A large billboard welcomes cyclists and cycling fans, triggering the first tinglings of excitement. The Giro is here, in Ireland! Fancy that.
I catch a bus for the 40-minute ride to the city centre, primed to take Belfast's pulse ahead of the "Big Start" as it's been translated. Exiting the Europa bus station in downtown Belfast, it doesn't take a Doctor Hutch to spot the telltale symptoms of Giro fever. Pink ribbons are wrapped around trees and lamp posts, pink bunting festoons buildings, pink-sprayed bikes are tethered outside bars and cafes, and flags and banners are everywhere. Not the usual Belfast 'flegs' with their troublesome sectarian baggage, these are pink flags. Innocent flags. Or are they? I jot in my field notes. 'A cult of cycling seems to have taken root and is spreading like measles among susceptible local populace...'
Belfast hasn't always been this into cycling. When I lived here some years ago, a giro was a fortnightly cheque from the government for about £80 (I was an unemployed student at the time). Some of that giro cheque was often spent at a techno club which, by a suspicious coincidence, was also called Giros. I'm not suggesting the Blair cabinet was covertly deploying electronic music and cheap amphetamines as a radical ancillary to the Peace Process - that would be giving them too much credit - but those were happy times.
Where are the Giros DJs now, I wonder? Probably running artisanal cheese farms in Norfolk. But enough already of the cheesy reminiscences. The Giro is in town, and it's definitely a bike race not a club night. The only discs spinning in Belfast today will be attached to the back of some extremely high-spec time trial bikes.
Speaking of cycling, it's only 2pm and there are still a few hours to kill before the race action starts. The sun is out, so I take a stroll to meet up with a friend, now working at the BBC in Belfast, who's on her lunchbreak. Over coffee and buns Anna tells me that yes, she has heard there is some sort of cycling thing happening in town. She's not a huge sports fan, but even she has noticed that the Giro has taken over the city. As if to prove the point, we're joined at our table by some visitors - three young women, one local and two with German accents, poking at maps and leaflets of the city and chatting excitedly about...well, I can't quite hear, but I imagine it's Marcel Kittel.
After coffee I walk to City Hall where already the grandstand and barriers have been erected at the finishing straight. Spectators are taking up their positions along the barriers, but I decide there's time to pop into the new tourist office on Donegall Road, just a dozen metres from the finish line.
The place is packed. A dedicated Giro stall is doing a brisk trade in pink mugs, caps and commemorative jerseys. A large flatscreen TV on the wall above is playing a film that seems to have lots of sweeping shots of fields and coastline. I scoop up some free maps and literature - anything pink goes in my bag - and then it's back to the street. There's a moment of horror as I realise the plum vantage points along the barriers have filled in but I spot a gap at the 75 metre mark and sidle in next to a woman who turns out to be a semi-professional spectator at events like this, judging by the anecdotes she's relating to her companion. I rest on the barrier and settle down to wait. Checking Twitter, I see that even Gerry Adams is getting in on the act - and attracting some amusing responses:
Further entertainment arrives in the shape of the caravan. I don't know what the caravan is normally like, but in Belfast it takes the form of a dozen or so taxi cabs painted pink, interspersed with small cars and vans in the livery of local radio stations and assorted businesses. I spot a few vehicles in the colours of Chain Reaction Cycles, the world's biggest online bicycle retailer, who if you didn't know are also based in Northern Ireland.
The car doors open, and out jump a posse of perky volunteers clutching cardboard boxes of freebies. They dash up and down along the barriers handing out their treasures - inflatable clappers, bidons, flags, pink foam hands - to the eager crowd, myself included. I only have eyes for the pink foam hand, the rest I pass on to a little guy who has wedged himself in by my elbow.
Excitement over, we settle down to wait for the racing to start. I try on my pink foam hand and do a discreet practice wave. My hand starts to feel a bit claustrophobic and sweaty in the smothering foam embrace; I take it off. At last the clock ticks round towards 5, and word crackles through on the tannoys as big screens relay images from the start in the Titanic Quarter - the first team is off! At exactly that moment the blue sky clouds over, the first drops of rain scatter darkly onto the road, and a few umbrellas pop up along the barriers.
Orica-GreenEdge are the first team to take to the course, and they set a blistering time of 24 minutes and 42 seconds on the 21.7km course. That's an average speed of...very rapid. They sprint past us in close formation and hurtle across the finish line in what will prove to be the fastest time of the day. I stay on to watch as each team comes round, each team's frontriders followed home by stragglers who've dropped off the back and trail in often minutes behind. But even the laggards are greeted with cheers and a crescendo of drumming on the hoardings by the crowd. It may be raining, but Belfast is doing itself proud today.
There's an extra loud cheer as Garmin Sharp set off, with home favourite Dan Martin tipped to do well in this Giro. I ready my pink foam hand for action. But of course, disaster strikes as a slippery manhole cover sends Martin and several team mates tumbling. He doesn't get up. Watching the scenes on the big screen, it's hard to take in. Martin's Giro is over almost before it's begun.
The last teams roll in safely, and I join the crowds across the street to watch Svein Tuft be presented with the maglia rosa outside City Hall on his birthday. Not a bad present. I wriggle my way to the front and somehow manage to slip onto the press photographers gallery as Tuft sprays the front row with champagne.
On the bus home I get chatting to one of the Giro volunteers. She tells me it's an early start the next morning, she'll be back in Belfast for 6am. And what about the freebies I ask her, any perks, signed jerseys, that sort of thing? 'No...' she considers. 'we get to keep our bibs though. And hopefully we'll get our breakfast tomorrow!'
Saturday 10 May: Stage 2, Belfast to Belfast
Day 2 of the Giro, and the remaining riders (not you, Dan) will have a chance to test their rain gear with a dash to the beach and back along the scenic Antrim coast. I turn down the offer of an early lift to Belfast in favour of a lie in.
In the afternoon as the sun emerges from its own lie in I decide to go out for a spin, an 18-mile loop along the back roads to Hilltown. Nestling in the foothills of the Mournes, most rides around here involve an uphill bit and I'm soon breathing heavily as the road climbs through woods. At least the air smells good: pine fresh. The forest opens out into peat bogland after a couple of miles, with barely a car to be seen as I blast along downhill under glowering skies.
A left turn takes me into Hilltown - not much more than a crossroads, but famous among the youth for miles around for the disco held there on Saturdays. Think Sin City with sheep. The road out of Hilltown involves another long uphill stretch of about 5km, but it's worth the slog - the last 7km back to Rostrevor are downhill all the way to the sea.
When I reach home the skies are brightening, so I continue my ride up the little mountain of Slieve Martin behind our house. At an average of 14% over 2km it's a steep one, and my bike's rear wheel slips from the dropouts in protest. Remounting on a gradient like this isn't easy. In fact, as I'm struggling to clip in with zero momentum I tumble sideways into the verge. Fortunately it is a lush mattress of spring greens.
'You see, Binky,' I explain to my old steel Bianchi as we resume the uphill slog, 'this is why I got a carbon bike...'
At the top of the hill is a car park from which a gravel footpath winds along the hillside to meet the new mountain bike trails and the Big Stone, a local landmark and viewpoint out across Carlingford Lough. The path that leads there is not designed for road bikes, but I wonder if...
I set off optimistically, tyres crunching and skidding on the gravel. But when the gradient hits 49% I make a tactical decision to dismount, and instead walk up the final stretch. I stop by the Big Stone for a breather. This 30-tonne granite boulder, so legend has it, was thrown here by the giant Finn MacCool himself. Or it may have been deposited on the mountainside by a glacier. Either way, it now makes a handy bike rest while I catch my breath before the fun part: getting down the hill safely with the help of Binky's decidedly sketchy brakes.
Sunday 11 May: Stage 3, Armagh to Dublin
It's the final day of the Giro's visit to Ireland, and today's stage starts from the cathedral city of Armagh (there are two cathedrals, both called St Patrick's) before crossing the border to finish in Dublin. My plan is to intercept it en route, and I know just the place - a cunningly planned ambush on the quiet roads of South Armagh, aka Bandit Country.
I set off just before 11am in what I hope is plenty of time for the 30km ride to Forkill, just south of Armagh. The first 15km follow the shoreline to Warrenpoint and then inland along the dual carriageway, with the Republic just a stone's throw across the water all the way to Newry. Here I take a turn left and into the hills, and at this point my plan hits a snag. Where are the road signs?
I ride past a succession of country lanes with not a signpost to be seen. My phone is down to a single bar so maps won't load. If in doubt, keep cycling - I ride on another mile, then another - and just as I'm starting to worry I'll miss everything, I spot a little pink sign at the side of the road: "Giro d'Italia - The Forge viewing point" and an arrow. A hundred yards later there's a turn off and another sign.
I belt it along the narrow winding road lined with hedgerows; from somewhere to my right over a hill I hear the crackle of Italian commentary over a tannoy, but all I can see is a farmyard with an idle tractor, and now a father and two children walking ahead of me down the same road. I speed down a hill and turn right, and suddenly emerge onto the fresh tarmac of a new road with a couple of policemen and Gardai chatting and small knots of spectators milling around. I've made it!
In my replica jersey and tights I get a few curious looks. Behind me I hear an out of breath man with young children in tow ask the stewards if the race has already gone by. "We thought we'd missed it when we saw him go past us," he says - "it's your fault!" he calls over to me with a grin.
As it turns out, we're all early - I don't know where that Italian commentary I heard came from, the caravan hasn't even arrived. Half an hour later the same pink taxis and radio station vans from Friday pull up in convoy, horns blazing, drivers and passengers waving at spectators gathered along the edge of the road. Both the caravaners and the fans hold phones in the air, each filming the other for their personal documentaries.
I've ended up right on the border between Northern Ireland and the South. It's unmarked, except by two signs at the roadside that read "Slán Abhaile" and, in English, "Safe Home". A hundred metres up the road is a pub with a trailer parked outside on which a live band are playing country tunes. A few barriers have been placed along the edge of the road, and a smattering of locals are enjoying an early pint of Guinness while children play on a bouncy castle - except it's not a castle, it's a sinking Titanic. I worry that this is in poor taste, but hopefully the TV cameras won't linger on it.
As I settle down to wait - there's a lot of waiting as a cycling spectator - I get chatting to an English man in wellies with a posh camera who lives just across the fields. He works at the Intel factory, and tells me stories about how microchips are made (it's very interesting).
The sun is out, but it's going to rain soon; nothing is happening right now, but it might later. You could say it's a typical Irish scene, except that not long afterwards 180 of the world's fittest men will come whizzing past.
The break comes first, five of them, given a thunderous overture by a TV helicopter appearing overhead. None of them are household names - then again, perhaps only one or two cyclists in the world could be called that around here - but they are given a hero's welcome. A few minutes later comes the peloton. They cruise past at what I guess is about two-thirds speed, chewing and glugging from bidons as they finish the remnants of their rolling breakfast.
I spot Michael Rogers, resplendent in his pink T-shirt, and point my camera for a picture - then take a step backwards into the hedge as the massed ranks roll by just inches from where I'm standing. Nobody wants to be this guy.
In thirty seconds they are gone, every last one of them, leaving nothing in their wake but a final few cars and a gel wrapper fluttering on the breeze.
And that, I'm afraid to say, is just typical of pro cyclists. You decorate the side of your pub weeks in advance, paint your donkey pink, hang out the bunting and wait hours for them to turn up - then they blitz past you in a second without a word of thanks, leaving banana skins and empty water bottles strewn across your garden. If they were house guests you wouldn't invite them back.
I say goodbye to Mr Chips and point Binky for home as the rain starts to fall again. Hopefully I'll make it back in time to catch the last hour of the stage on TV, which is really the more sensible way to watch a cycle race.
But on the other (pink foam) hand, how often do you get to see a Grand Tour cycle down your local roads? Cyclists may be the house guests from hell, but we put up with their callous indifference to our hospitality in exchange for the little sprinkling of glamour and magic they bring as they zip past us in a blur of lycra and toned muscle. A chance to share in a small piece of cycling history as it's being written, or ridden. That's what the Giro has brought to Ireland, and it's what the Tour will bring to Yorkshire, Cambridge and London later this summer. And this time, there really is hope of a home victory.
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