The Giro d'Italia is traditionally known as the warm up event for the main course that is the Tour de France in the summer, but that doesn't mean that the respective riders don't take it seriously.

Up until this weekend, this year's event had been largely uneventful, even though Javier Moreno was disqualified for shoving a rival cyclist into the crowd during the fourth stage of the competition.

However, the action was ramped up a notch this weekend as a police motorcycle took out virtually the entire Sky team after it nudged itself out into the oncoming traffic.

The incident occurred about 12km from the finish line and one of the riders taken out is well known to cycling fans on these shores.

Geraint Thomas is one of the star names in the Sky Team these days, and he and his squad were wiped out, watching their hopes of winning the event evaporate.

As the peloton approached the Blockhaus climb, a rider from Sunweb hit the deck having clipped the police vehicle sending a number of other riders down to the ground with him.

"We were all racing for the bottom of the climb and then, next thing I know, somebody in front of me hits the motorbike," Thomas told Wales Online.

"We go down and my shoulder popped out. I felt good but then I crashed and that was it, race over.

"It's really disappointing.

"We were racing for positions so we filled the road. Someone hit it in front of me and then there was nowhere to go but straight down."

However, despite his injuries, Thomas continued to finish the stage, though he now finds himself down in 17th place, and a full 5 minutes and 14 seconds behind leader Nairo Quintana, who began the day in second.

And Thomas admitted that he hasn't thought about what his next move will be as he is still too angry to come up with a new game plan.

"It's too early to think, I'm a bit angry and the minute," he added.

"We'll sit down and work out what we're going to do tomorrow."