While our man Toby Watson was getting cracking shots like this at the Giro, there were pictures of a completely different variety being taken from the skies above by the police.
As hundreds of thousands of spectators were enjoying the start of the Giro d’Italia on the roads of Northern Ireland last May, Irish policing history was being made in the skies above.
It has now emerged that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) used drones to carry out surveillance and to generally aid the smooth management of the race.
The PSNI has purchased nine drones, which are similar to model aircraft and have cameras fitted that relay pictures to officers on the ground in real time.
Also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, the drones enable police forces to discreetly monitor events on the ground and can cover larger distances much more quickly than vehicles travelling by road.
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The drones were purchased by the PSNI a year before the Giro’s visit to the North for three stages in May.
They were first put into action to assist the PSNI’s security operation during the G8 summit in Fermanagh in 2013.
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The PSNI is one of the first police forces in Britain or Ireland to use unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as drones. Some look like mini helicopters, as above, while others have wings like large model airplanes.
And while there have been just over 100 flights since then, the Giro is one of a relatively small number of events where the fledgling technology has been used in the North to date.
As well as the G8 summit and the Giro, the drones have also been used during Royal visits to the North and also for the Belfast City Marathon.
During the Giro, full road closures were in place across vast tracts of the North, especially around the Belfast area for the team time trial stage 1 and the start and finish of stage 2 the following day.
Using the drones would have allowed the PSNI to monitor any traffic congestion as a result of the road closures or indeed any breaches of those closures that might pose a danger to the riders.
In the Republic, commercial drones were used by the Black Umbrella production company to shoot aerial shots at a variety of races last year.
The footage, including that filmed at the National Road Race Championships and Suir Valley Three Day races, formed part of the TV highlights packages the Co Clare-based outfit produced for the Setanta Sports channel.
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