I saw one of the UAE guys fall, straight away I knew it was bad

Tuesday, September 4, Stage 10: Salamanca to Fermoselle Bermillo de Sayago (177km)

Since writing about my brother Florian’s second battle with leukaemia in my Giro diary in May, I’ve had hundreds of messages of support for Florian from well-wishers both in Ireland and all around the world, for which I am very thankful.

To keep you up to date, I had some good news yesterday when I had a phone call from my mother to tell me that Florian is going to have his last round of chemotherapy on September 12.

Back in 2008, all of the family were tested for bone marrow donations but my other brother Alexis – who was only 10 at the time, was the only suitable donor.

They can’t use Alexis again but thankfully they’ve found a match elsewhere and, all going well, Florian should have a second bone marrow transplant in Nice on September 18.

It’s a worrying time but thankfully things are moving in the right direction and I went to bed a little bit happier than normal last night.

This morning we were back racing again, on a pretty straightforward day where only local rider Jesus Ezquerra of Burgos-BH was brave enough to attack around 5km after the start.

Happy to let him fight a lone battle up front, the peloton eased up and most took the opportunity to stop for a pee.

The action kicked off again with Rohan Dennis one of those having a few goes off the front before Richie Porte briefly found himself chasing the lone leader with Portuguese rider Tiago Machado ultimately deciding against it and leaving Machado to bridge up alone.

Rohan was a bit pissed off that his time-trialling skills deemed him too big a threat to be allowed up the road, even though we still had 170km to go.

In fairness, I think Rohan just wanted a good, hard day up front to help him prepare for his biggest goal of the year, the world time trial championships in Austria next month.

He knew he’d get a better workout up front rather than sitting in the peloton all day.

There was a bad crash today just after the intermediate sprint – around 160km in. I was coming back up through the cars and saw one of the UAE guys fall at the back of the bunch and straight away I knew it was bad.

We weren’t going particularly fast or anything but the way he hit the ground, banging his head on impact, just didn’t look right and it gave me shivers and I hope he’s all right now.

Bora Hansgrohe set a really good tempo on the climb that topped out 20km from the finish in an effort to get rid of some of the sprinters and give their world road race champion Peter Sagan a better chance in the final sprint.

But when Quickstep fastman Elia Viviani was still there at the top, they gave up the ghost and eased up.

The last 25km today were dead straight road, without one corner so, as the drag racing ratcheted up at the front, I sat towards the back in a little bit more space, mentally ticking off the kilometre-to-go barriers as they passed, with Viviani taking another stage win at the line.

Tomorrow we have a lumpier stage where a lot of riders, me included, will have their eye on getting in the breakaway and going for the stage.

Our hotel this evening is a former convent, so I might even say a few prayers before going to bed tonight.

Vuelta A Espana Live Eurosport, 3.0