Eddie Dunbar goes into the Tour de l'Avenir on an Irish team he believes can take the fight to many of the best U23s in cycling.
Eddie Dunbar on Tour de l'Avenir prospects
The Irish team due to start Tour de l’Avenir in France today is very strong and can target big results, Eddie Dunbar has said.
The Aqua Blue Sport man rides with Matt Teggart, Daire Feeley, Darragh O’Mahony, Michael O’Loughlin and Mark Downey.
And with a TTT as one of the 10 stages, Eddie Dubbar said the Irish riders were strong enough and knew each other well enough to hope for a result in it.
“The first few days I’ll ride myself into it and get the feel of the bunch, a sense of what’s going to happen in the race,” he said.
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“I think the main racing will happen towards the end of the race. It won’t be won in the first few days. But it can certainly be lost.
“There’s the team time trial on stage 4. And I think we have one of the strongest teams there to do something in that.
“We’re a bunch of guys who have known each other since we were 11 years of age. And I think that will be a nice thing for us to aim for.
“Hopefully (we could) get on the podium, if not on the top step. It would be nice to share a moment like that in our last year as U23s.”
At the recent Tour de Wallonie in Belgium. With the Irish team, second rider from right, at the Euros last Sunday.
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Dunbar said he was disappointed with abandoning the road race at the European Championships in Glasgow last weekend.
The course was so technical and the weather conditions so poor that it was hard to even stay in the group, he added.
Dunbar got caught on the wrong side of a split and while he almost got back on he couldn’t close the last 50 metres.
“I got caught by the split at about the 100km mark. And I still don’t know what exactly happened,” he explained.
“We went around a corner and suddenly the bunch was riding away from us,” he said, adding the constant cornering meant the race was constantly on the edge.
And because it was such a technical course in the city centre he said eating and drinking was even hard to do because of the constant cornering.
He was full of praise for Teggart; the only Irishman to finish and the youngest rider to complete the race.
And after the disappointment of Glasgow Dunbar was looking forward to the Tour de l’Avenir. It features the best U23 talent in the world, all riding for national teams.
Eddie Dunbar also looks to Britain
The big stage always acts as a shop window for the top riders to showcase their talent to WorldTour teams looking on for new signings.
Eddie Dunbar added that after the French race he would ride the Tour of Britain with Aqua Blue Sport.
“This year’s course definitely favours punchy riders and climbers,” he said of the race which starts in Wales on Sunday fortnight.
“I think it’s a race that I can do well in it. I lived in Hereford for nearly a year with NFTO.
“So many of the roads on stages 1 and 2 are well known to me – this will certainly be an advantage.”
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