The Giro d'Italia ended in expected farce in Milan this weekend but, for British fans of the sport at least, there was a welcome distraction.It is arguable that British road cycling has never known a weekend as productive and, in terms of the rest of the summer, exciting, especially as Mark Cavendish, the Manxman who is comfortably the world's best sprinter was riding around Essex on a training run having pulled out of the Giro early.
The final stage of the Italian race ended in a time trial on Sunday which was won by the British veteran David Millar, a popular rider who has rebuilt his image and career since confessing his use of drugs and serving a ban, and who has now won stages in, and led, all three of the Grand Tours.
A day earlier, Bradley Wiggins, leader of Team Sky and himself something of a time trial specialist, scored a stunning victory in Germany, winning the time trial stage of the Bayern-Rundfahrt, beating the majestic Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara in the process.
There was an added bonus for Team Sky and Britain in Germany as Sunday saw the five-stage race come to an end with Wiggins' team mate Geraint Thomas finishing first overall, the first win of his pro career.
"The goals this season were the classics and the Tour," said Thomas, a Welshman who is also reigning British champion. "I hit the first one of those pretty well, had a little bit of downtime after that and now the build-up to the Tour seems to be going pretty much to plan. I'll have a nice, easy week now and then it's the Dauphine and then the Tour will virtually be on us."
Wiggins, fourth in the Tour de France two years ago but a disappointment in Sky colours in 2010, appears to be exactly where he should be in terms of peaking for the event which starts on July 2.
Cancellara has been virtually unbeatable in time trials that matter in recent years but the Brit beat him by a not-inconsiderable 33 seconds over the 26 kilometre course in Friedberg. Thomas, a track team mate of Wiggins' and no mean time trialist himself, finished fifth on that stage, setting himself up for the overall win on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Millar was storming to victory on stage 21 of the Giro, the Garmin-Cervelo rider pipping Denmark's Alex Rasmussen by seven seconds over the 25.5 kilometre course.
In third place, 36 seconds back, was controversial Spaniard Alberto Contador who won the overall race by the huge margin of six minutes and 10 seconds from Italy's Michele Scarponi.
Contador rode magnificently in the mountains, laying the foundations for his win, but only after he was cleared to race by Spain's Cycling Federation who overturned a ban handed to him by world governing body the UCI, s following the rider failing a drugs test while winning last summer's Tour de France.
The messy situation will, hopefully, be cleared up by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where the UCI will attempt to make their one-year ban of Contador stick. But the CAS hearing has no scheduled date at present and is not expected until July, by which time Contador may well have won the Tour de France.
In essence, if CAS decide in July that Contador should, indeed, have been suspended, the result of three Grand Tours would be overturned at the stroke of a pen - with Scarponi declared winner of this year's Giro.
It is a shadow and potential disgrace that cycling could well do without.
Thankfully, in this country at least, the like of Thomas, Wiggins and Millar have shifted the focus elsewhere.
