By Brian Canty
Having raced just 24 days last year, due to the impact of
Covid-19 and bad luck, Eddie Dunbar will be back at it again tomorrow in at the
four-day Tour de la Provence in France.
It looks like a good course for the 24-year-old; a sprint
day to start tomorrow, an undulating day on Friday that can split the field
somewhat and then a cat 1 finish on Saturday´s queen stage to Chalet
Reynard-Mont Ventoux. The action then concludes with a likely sprint day again
on Sunday.
We spoke to Dunbar fresh from a two-week training block
in Gran Canaria recently where he sounded motivated and ready to get
cracking.
“I´m looking forward to getting started again and just
racing my bike because that's what I need; consistent racing and to stay
upright…”
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“It's been a long time since I raced. You can race from
January to the end of October if you want now…some guys were still racing into
November.
“Obviously I missed a lot of racing last year. I missed another Grand Tour because of my crash at Tirreno, which was frustrating.”
That brings us neatly back to his last race. September 9th, 2020. It's the third stage of Tirreno-Adriatico and Dunbar was really flying. Sitting in the front group on a lumpy day with around 25 others he touched the wheel of a rider in front and down he went.
What he didn’t know at the time was his season was also over. “I still thought I could do the Giro,” he reflected.
“Even when I broke my collarbone before (in 2016) I was
operated on and I rode the Rás three weeks later.”
He even won a stage that year too, beating a certain Jai
Hindley in Baltinglass.
“I thought I could have gone to the Giro, done a good job and stayed out of the messy stuff in the first week and I would be good to go,” Dunbar said of the immediate aftermath of his Tirreno crash last year.
But then the unthinkable happened; he fell out while out
training in Monaco a week or two after his crash in Italy.
“I thought the Vuelta might be an option but when that
happened the season was done. Any healing done in the two weeks before (that
second crash) was undone. It was very frustrating and at that point the head
was in a bad way.
“I missed Tirreno, the Giro, the Vuelta and the Worlds.
It would have been nice to get another Worlds under the belt… that course
looked good for me,” he said of the uber-lumpy course in Italy.
Watching the Giro d´Italia back home in Banteer was particularly tough as his close friend and Ineos Grenadiers teammate Tao Geoghegan Hart was ripping the race up.
“I think after G went out I knew by the way Tao was
riding that he could win,” Dunbar said of sensing very early in the race Geoghegan
Hart looked great.
“I could see he had a grasp of it and I thought he might
have a chance. From a tactical point of view he was in the best place; outside
the top 10 so nobody was worried about him until the last few days.
“We were messaging every day and it didn't surprise me at
all that he won. I said it to my mother on the second rest day, and my
grandfather as well. He made it look effortless, he was so relaxed going into
it.
“He rode the perfect race. It was very impressive by him
and the team to win seven stages out of 21. It was so hard at home watching on
the TV, though.
“Not being there was very painful. It really motivated me and it has spurred me on to be part of something in the team as opposed to being at home injured.”
Over the winter Ineos Grenadiers added some of the best
climbing talent in the world to their squad by signing Dani Martinez from EF
Pro Cycling, Richie Porte from Trek Segafredo, Laurens de Plus from Jumbo Visma
and Adam Yates from Mitchelton-Scott.
It´s a hell of a roster when you add in the Tour de
France champions from 2018 and 2019 - Geraint Thomas and Egan Bernal - as well
as Richard Carapaz and the aforementioned Geoghegan Hart. But Dunbar isn't
fazed by the competition for places.
“If I´m going well around the Grand Tours and the other
guys aren't, I'll do what I'm asked,” he said.
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“I don't mind which one I do but I would prefer to go in
(to the season) with the idea of the one-day races like the Ardennes... And if
you´re building up for those you'll be ready for a Grand Tour anyway.”
In terms of races, it looks like Dunbar will be doing the
Tour of the Basque Country in early April, Brabantse Pijl on April 14th and
then Amstel Gold, Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege between April 18th
and 25th.
If he's going well, the Giro “might be a possibility”. If
not, the Vuelta will be his Grand Tour, as well as the Olympics in the latter
half of the year.
But for now his own improvement and what he needs to do
is what concerns him most. The former Junior Tour of Ireland winner joked: “I
just have to stay upright!”
“I never have an issue training or working hard. I can do
that as well as anyone. For me,
it's about getting a consistent run of racing and that's what I am lacking,
compared to most guys my age,” he said.
“I have suffered injuries and setbacks but any time I get
a run something happens. The main thing is staying upright.
“(Crashing) is part of cycling too and some things are
outside your control. Hopefully I can get that consistency this year into my
legs and that will be the difference for me.”
Crashes and injuries, of course, are an occupational
hazard in cycling and the truncated 2020 season highlighted how quickly and
dramatically careers can be diverted off course. Just ask Remco Evenepoel and
Fabio Jakobsen.
Dunbar was in the bunch in Poland on the day Jakobsen
crashed in the sprint went head first through the barriers.
“I remember before the start everyone was talking about
the finish. I heard about it but I never watched it,” he said of the downhill
finishing straight on stage 1.
“When I saw it for the first time... the TV doesn’t do it
justice, how steep that thing is. It´s not right to have a finish like that in
a bike race when you see the speed we do.
“We rode really well that day, we had Carapaz and me in
the front of the bunch inside the final kilometre and I said ´Okay, I am safe,
I need to float on the wheels in 20th and stay out of trouble´.
“Next thing, I’m seeing riders falling everywhere. I
broke like the rest of the guys but there were guys in front of me crashing and
guys behind me crashing.
“I never saw how bad it was for Fabio (Jakobsen) until I
got back to the hotel. It was crazy to have a finish like that, but I saw a few
photos recently of him and it's great to see him back with his team.
“My mother won´t even watch the races now unless I´m not
in them. Seriously though, the speeds are crazy now. Every year bikes are
getting faster, wheels, kit, technology; it´s all getting faster and it's
important that rules change with that as well.
“The speed some of these boys can go... It's incredible
to see it, crazy. TV doesn´t make it look like much but if they had full volume
on the bikes live in the bunch sprint…”
Away from the chaos of the sport, Dunbar is enjoying the
life of a full-time professional sportsman.
“I moved to Monaco in December 2019 because the team is
based here and I have access to the team house, my coach is here and obviously
a few of the guys in the team are here.
“I have settled in and I like it. The training...it's
obviously a lot different to Banteer! I do like it here.
“It´s a great base to train and we get great support from
the team. I spend a bit of time with Sam (Bennett), especially over the last
year we got to know each other well. My girlfriend Niamh and (his wife)
Tara are good friends too and that helps.
“Sam is the guy I see most over here. He was in a similar
situation to me coming here. He moved over and had to get used to the place. It
would be no harm to scrub up on my French, though.”
As well as Dunbar
– who has a real change of a stage win and GC result after going very close
last year and in 2019 - Ineos Grenadiers also has Egan Bernal and Ivan Sosa in
the French race in coming days.
Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana) is also in the field, having taken a stage last year and finished 2nd overall to Nairo Quintana (Arkea Samsic), who is not riding this time.
Tim Wellens
(Lotto Soudal) is also riding after his stage and overall win at Étoile
de Bessèges last week. World champion Julian Alaphilippe leads Deceuninck-QuickStep’s
charge in the race.
Other top riders who can challenge on the climbs include:
Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Felix Großschartner (Bora-Hansgrohe), Warren Barguil
(Arkea Samsic), Enric Mas (Movistar) and Trek-Segafredo’s Bauke Mollema and Giulio
Ciccone.
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