Knowing the pain of this year's Giro is almost over, some of the riders down the field really enter into the spirit of the occasion in this ultimate selfie video shot on the feared Monte Zoncolan. Adam Hansen of Lotto-Belisol, above, hugs the fan running beside as both are filmed on a video camera on the end of a 'selfie' pole.
As the ultimate 'selfie' cycling video, the first clip below definitely warrants a good look.
The occasion was the feared Zoncolan climb on the penultimate day of the Giro d'Italia on Saturday as the riders tackled the last summit finish, and indeed the very last mountain of the three week tour.
The guy with the camera is Italian fan Rodrigo Mattiuz. He fixed a GoPro HD camera onto the end of a pole, or 'selfie stick', allowing him the leverage to record himself running alongside the riders as they made their way up the ascent.
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When the leader's on the day and the main general classification riders go by, they do their best to ignore Mattiuz with his camera and pole running alongside.
However, those further back really enter into the spirit of the occasion. Knowing the pain of this year's race is just minutes from being over, they play up for the camera for long stretches as Mattiuz runs alongside.
Lotto-Belisol's Australian Adam Hansen even embraces Mattiuz on the move and is just one of several riders to chat to him even though they are struggling up such a difficult mountain.
Thankfully no harm was done.
But check out the second video below for evidence of what happens when overzealous fans overstep the mark on such a hard mountain.
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This second clip, below, shows the moment Franceso Bongiorno of the Italian Bardiani-CSF team was pushed by a fan into the back of Tinkoff-Saxo's Michael Rogers as the pair were leading the same stage.
Bongiorono is forced to unclip his foot from the pedals and put it on the ground to avoid running into the back of his breakaway companion with 3km remaining to the summit finish.
But with the gradient so steep, he can't get going again and his effort quickly goes to pieces. That leaves Rogers to sail up the road for his second stage win of the race.
The poor Italian was eventually 3rd. He said afterwards that not knowing if he could have won was very frustrating.
The 24-year-old added that when the fan pushed him and forced him to stop, he could have at least had the decency to push him a second time as he tried to get his momentum back restarting.
