Rinse and repeat. After a very promising debut in Grand Tour GC racing at the Giro d’Italia this May, Eddie Dunbar has wasted no time waiting for a second crack at the same goal and he heads to the Vuelta a España this August with an identical objective.
The Jayco-AIuIa rider and his team have applied some significant fine tuning to the Irishman’s Grand Tour build-up over the last few months, including his first spell at ‘real’ altitude training camp – versus sleeping in an altitude tent – and testing out different bikes for the climbs.
As the 26-year-old told Cyclingnews at the Tour of Pologne, he’s heading into his second Grand Tour of 2023 feeling upbeat about his chances, his confidence boosted by both his 7th place in the Giro this May and his solid build-up for the equivalent race in Spain.
Not everything has gone ideally for Dunbar in Poland. He crashed on stage 5, hurting his shoulder and he has further tests due on Monday as a precaution. But despite an erratic-looking position in the Pologne TT as a result of the injury – “I was all over the place,” as he candidly put it – Dunbar will head into Krakow on this evening’s final stage in 7th place on GC, and well on track for the Vuelta in a little over three weeks’ time.
“I did a good training block after the Giro, I took a bit of a break, but I’ve built up nicely,” Dunbar told Cyclingnews at the Tour de Pologne.
“I went back to Ireland for two weeks then went to altitude for three weeks. It was my first time at altitude doing a proper stint there, so that’ll be interesting to see how that goes.”
Crashes and a sore, taped-up shoulder apart – “It was on stage 5, two guys went down in front of me and I had nowhere to go” he said – Dunbar’s underlying condition is where he wants it to be, given his debut in the Vuelta is still a little further down the line.
“I feel all right, just lacking a bit of punch and acceleration not having raced for two months, but I think can be happy, it’s been so far, so good,” he said. “It’s been a hard race so far, but my legs are all right. Stage 3 was hard, we were on the pedals all day, but the big goal is in a few weeks’ time, not here.”
Dunbar’s build-up for his Vuelta debut has been shaped by his first ever full-length stint at altitude, in Andorra. His only previous camp at altitude, rather than time spent sleeping in an altitude tent, was a 10-day spell three years ago.
As he observed, that was not…
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