Eddie Dunbar has been at the service of his teammate Ian Bibby so far in the Tour of Britain and that will continue to be the case - but the Corkman said he will also be hoping to chase a result of his own in the coming days.
By Brian Canty
Eddie Dunbar is feeling optimistic about his chances of a result in the latter half of the Tour of Britain, despite a testing opening four stages.
The 19 year-old Corkman is the youngest rider in the race but doesn’t seem fazed by the stiff competition or the difficult parcours this week.
Dunbar is currently lying in 79th place overall, 24:36 behind race leader Juan Jose Lobato of Movistar but over 22 minutes of that was lost on Monday’s second stage because of an ill-timed puncture.
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“I had a bad day that day,” said the NFTO man in reference to the 159-kilometre stage from Clitheroe to Colne.
“I had to get a bike change 10 kilometres before the last climb which meant I couldn’t get in a good position for it and because of that I missed the split.”
That split took a lot of riders out of contention for the stage which Czech rider Petr Vakoc (Etixx-QuickStep) went on to win.
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Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep), Alex Dowsett (Movistar), Gerald Ciolek (MTN-Quebeka) and Andy Fenn (Team Sky) were all there in Dunbar's group, as were fellow Irishmen Ryan Mullen (Garmin Cannondale) and the An Post Chain Reaction pair of Jack Wilson and Conor Dunne.
“The GC is gone for me now so chasing stages and helping my teammate Ian Bibby are the priorities.”
Bibby is a stage winner from the An Post Rás this year having claimed honours on the day to Ballinamore.
He’s currently 27 seconds down on GC and second in the KOM classification.
Today’s stage to the category one finish at Hartside Fell should really tell us a lot more about who’s on form and indeed, how Dunbar can do against some of the world’s best climbers.
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