Eddie Dunbar has taken two fantastic stage wins in the Vuelta, including riding away from the general classification group on the queen stage, deep into the third week of the race. What's not to love? The Irishman was beset with crash after crash in recent years, pushing him into a seemingly perpetual cycle of trying to heal up, get back on his bike and somehow be ready to salvage something from his next race.
Not only did he lose countless racing chances, but his progression never gathered pace, taking it's toll physically and mentally. And during his time with Ineos/Sky he was - weirdly - left to languish on the bench as his team mates set off to the Grand Tours. But with victory in Spain - in Campus Tecnológico Cortizo Padron and on Picón Blanco - those troubles seem a long time ago.
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He said after the race he'd been joking with people he wished there was a fourth week in the Vuelta. He was feeling that good. And while that bodes really well for the rest of the season, which includes the Worlds with Team Ireland, what does next season, and beyond, hold for Dunbar?
He is now a top tier rider; someone able to aim for a top five in a Grand Tour, especially the Giro, and also take a stage, and that makes him a hot property. But what of Ben O'Connor coming into his Team Jayco AlUla squad next season, especially after the Australian rode so well at La Vuelta, taking an epic stage win and finishing 2nd overall? And does Dunbar now progress to the Tour, at the expense of the Giro, and then try to cram in a Vuelta return? Aside from Grand Tours, what should he target?
Next season
Dunbar's two big successes so far have come at the Giro - 7th overall last year - and at this year's Vuelta; two stage wins and 11th overall, despite an under par performance in the first week. The obvious next step is the Tour de France, a race he definitely wants to ride. But should he hope for a Tour ride next year? Surely that's the next step now that he's a double Grand Tour stage winner, especially a queen stage winner, having left the general classification men in his wake on a hard climb?
The Tour will be much harder than last year's Giro or this year's Vuelta. Firstly, the top three at this year's Tour will almost certainly return; two-time winners Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) as well as Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep).
The best teams in the world all have their best line-ups, at their season peak, on the Tour start line. Frankly, the Tour de France is a different, much harder, race. Vuelta and Giro results do not automatically transfer into big Tour performances.
One notable feature of Dunbar's opening week at the Vuelta was his struggling in the heat. He wasn't alone in that regard, and it was exceptionally hot. But the heat seems to take from his performance; not a good match for France in July. And while the Irish rider is national TT champion, his TT riding, when compared with Tour GC men, may hold him back.
There is no doubt Dunbar will, at some point, ride the Tour. But the Giro-Vuelta combination looks like the best scenario for him next year.
There are always big general classification riders in the Giro, but Pogačar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel will probably be absent. And that definitely opens up the possibilities for Dunbar. He could go in aiming for a top five overall, maybe the final podium if everything went well, rather than a top 10 in a fully stacked field at the Tour.
And having tasted stage win success at the Vuelta, he will want that feeling again. The Giro - with cooler weather and climbing that suits him - looks like a great bet for a GC ride and stage win. If he rode the race, and came out of it in good condition, he would have plenty of time for a break, and a return to racing.
That could be aimed at a return to La Vuelta which, like the Giro, would be a slight step down in intensity from the Tour; some of the very best riders absent or still not in their Tour condition.
In short, while the Tour is the most glamorous race, Dunbar is much more likely to add to his palmares in a meaningful way with a Giro-Vuelta approach. And if he were to go to the Tour and it didn't work out, any rider could find themselves slipping backwards in terms of morale.
Dunbar is still only 28-years-old. That means as a climbing, GC, rider he could still have up to five more seasons at, or close to, his best. But if he spent next season, and maybe the year after that, chasing Tour success and it didn't pan out, it would have been a massive shame to have foregone the Giro. He climbed so well there last year and probably would have finished in the top five but for illness in the third week.
New team mate Ben O'Connor
The arrival of the Australian doesn't need to be any big change for Dunbar, but you never know until it happens. Simon Yates is the team's current Grand Tour leader, and has been for years. He is exiting and O'Connor is coming in, from Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale.
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Dunbar is nearer to O'Connor's level than he was to Yates's. So the change in riders arguably moves Dunbar up a little in the GC rider team pecking order; still 2nd, but closer to the leader.
In an ideal world (stickybottle's ideal world!) Team Jayco AlUla would send O'Connor to the Tour next year, leaving Dunbar free to target the Giro earlier in the year. And then both may go to the Vuelta, as GC and stage winner options.
One other scenario is that the aforementioned big three don't ride the Giro, and perhaps Vuelta winner Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), also skips the race in favour of the Tour. In that case, it would be very tempting for Team Jayco AlUla to stick O'Connor into the Giro to try and win the race, or at least make the final podium.
That would restrict Dunbar in the sense he may have to miss the Giro - and probably go to the Tour instead, with less return on offer. Or he would go to the Giro to support any GC challenge O'Connor could muster; the least attractive scenario.
We won't now for a while. But we hope Jayco AlUla gets very excited about O'Connor's Vuelta ride and sees him as a potential Tour podium finisher, especially as he has previously been 4th in the race. That would leave Dunbar free to tackle the Giro as the first big goal of the season, with a team to support him.
Crashes
We hate to mention it, but Eddie Dunbar has to stop crashing. That period of repeated mishaps has to be behind him. He spoke last week of his Giro crash back in May causing him concern his career could be over, due to his knee injury. He also talked about the cumulative physical and mental toll of repeated crashes.
Dunbar is also a rider who seems to become badly injured in crashes. He certainly sustains tricky injuries that take a long time to return from. He's still in his prime, and with several seasons ahead at his peak, but he is 28-years-old. And another crash-it season or two would be very costly.
But let's put the depressing stuff aside for a second.
This Vuelta has revealed what a fully fit and healthy Dunbar can do, as last year's Giro did. His ride at La Vuelta - the confidence with which he took stage 11 and the sheer quality of his stage 20 win - was the product of a world class talent.
His performance in Spain should be the source of great excitement for everyone, not least Dunbar. In a sport where success begets success, he is now very much on the upswing, with opportunities still to come in the weeks ahead and next season to look forward to.
What else could be target?
Dunbar is not really a one-day racer and it's unlikely that's going to change. But he has already won two one-week stage races; Tour de Hongrie (2.1) and Coppi e Bartali (2.1). However, they are slightly lower level events, will more modest opposition, than Dunbar is likely to face in the future.
And his big, big talent - the characteristic that should bring his biggest success - is his ability to climb with the best in the world in the third week of a Grand Tour. That's the 'big money' attribute in cycling and he needs to focus on that, get the best out of it.
That doesn't necessarily make him suited to one-week racing, even those events with very hard climbs. He is unlikely to get his best results in those one-weekers, but that doesn't mean he can't perform well in them.
There is no reason, for example, why he couldn't aim for a stage win, and top 5-10 GC rides, in races like O Gran Camiño (2.1), Tirreno-Adriatico (2.UWT), Itzulia Basque Country (2.UWT), Itzulia Basque Country (2.UWT), Tour de Pologne (2.UWT) and others.
Some of these races - indeed most of them - are not quite the monster test of endurance that seems to suit Dunbar best. But if he can win on Picón Blanco, he has every right to face into any hard hilly stage race with confidence.
For now, next season based on the Giro first, then the Vuelta, and snaffling up wins in short stage races if he can, looks like the ideal scenario. Once he gets a clearer run at racing than he has in recent seasons, his performances at La Vuelta may prove the start of much bigger things for Eddie Dunbar.
