The rain finally let up sometime during the night but the day was still overcast. I started to hear riders and walkers going up the mountain around 8 or so, and as usual the throng thickened more and more. I wondered how far up some of the walkers were going – we are, after all, about 10 km from the top of the climb.

The rain came and went a couple of times, but never the pouring that we had yesterday afternoon just after arriving.

We took a walk up a bit, then down from where we were and decided that right across the road was likely one of the best places to watch from. When it rained a bit harder we retreated into the campervan for lunch.

Around 2:30 we each grabbed a tent ground cover and headed across the road to our chosen spots so we could perch on the ground at the edge of the road without getting our butts soaked.

We’re just below the 26th hairpin from the top, out of a total of 34. The breakaway reached us at 4:08.

Nibali arrived with the peloton about six minutes later.

Ackerman was all smiles as he passed, despite still being all bandaged up on his right side from the awful crash days and days ago.

One of the Bora team cars had parked right next to the campervan to pass out bidons to his team, and when Colin went back to change his camera the fellow just handed him a bottle without even asking.

The final riders made it past at around 4:30, just as the rain started up again. By the time fans were making their way back down the mountain it was just pouring. We decided not to venture down in the rain and stayed on the Mortirolo another night.

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