Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) is set to get back into action tomorrow after a month away from competition, getting a big block of training completed. While the Irish TT champion is now building towards his Tour de France debut next month, he is targeting a result in France over the next week.
And as he aims towards the Tour he will go up against the biggest riders in the sport over the next week, including Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step).
However, he is looking to take more from Critérium du Dauphiné than simply honing his form for next month, however good the opposition is, with the Corkman now in his third year of a three-year contract with Jayco AlUla.
“A lot of their big riders are there getting ready for the tour so it’s going to be good to test myself and see how I am after a big block of training,” he said.
“Hopefully I can go there and perform in the Hillier days or the mountain days and be up there on GC I think that’s a good goal. I’m feeling good and training has gone really well my numbers are good as well.
“I think it’s just nice to go into the race now and try and turn that training into results build a confidence. And it would be nice to go into the next week test the legs and come away with a result.”
The 28-year-old from Cork took two fantastic stage wins at last year’s Vuelta, including riding away from the GC select group on Picón Blanco to win the queen stage.
Dunbar’s best result so far this year was at the season-opening AlUla Tour (2.1), where he was 4th and 5th on stages. More recently, he was 16th overall at Tour of the Alps (2.Pro) and placed 10th in stage 2 – to La Grande Béroche – at Tour de Romandie (2.UWT).
If he wants to reach the heights of last year’s Vuelta he will need to step up a level, though this week at Critérium du Dauphiné offers a perfect chance to get that process underway.
His best chances will likely come on stage 6 – with the summit finish to Combloux – as well as stage 7, with the summit finish on Valmeinier 1800, and the final stage to Plateau du Mont-Cenis.
