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 long enough really to produce any benefits. This time around, he said, he’s had time to adapt. Staying in Andorra also gave him time to check out the Vuelta’s first summit finish on stage 3.
“I’d be stupid not to have done that,” he said. “Arinsal is steep, eight kilometres long and the weather could be fairly warm, though it’s hit and miss in Andorra so we’ll see. It’ll be an interesting day, coming so soon after the [stage 1] TTT so who knows what could happen.”
Adaptation to the heat is another key factor in the Vuelta, and will likely provide a marked contrast to May’s constant downpours and chilly weather in the Giro. But as Dunbar said in Poland: “After 15 days in the rain in the Giro, I definitely don’t mind the heat, and I certainly prefer it to the rain.”
The overall goal in the Vuelta though is for Dunbar to use the Giro as a benchmark, and hopefully take things a few notches higher. However, he recognised that the Vuelta is a very different beast to the Italian race, and he’ll be taking part in the Spanish Grand Tour for the first time in his career, too.
“It’s that bit more punchy, bit more aggressive, I think. I’m saying now that I like it, but maybe,” he added with a grin, “after three weeks of it, I won’t be so sure.
“In any case, it’ll be exciting to see how the three weeks go and see what the change in Grand Tours from Giro to Vuelta feels like. All I can do control what I can control, train and then go there with an open mind.”
The goal in both is the same, but with the experience and result at the Giro to build on in Spain.
“I’ll ride GC as high as I can get. I think at the Giro I learned a lot about what could happen, there were a few things after the Giro we said we’d work on and we’ve done that,” Dunbar concluded.
“I had a good three weeks there in the Giro, and if I can improve on that, it’ll have been a very successful year doing Grand Tours.”
