‘I was just sick of the crashes’
Cork cyclist Eddie Dunbar on how he considered quitting the sport before his stage win in the Vuelta a Espana last week, writes Gerard Cromwell
When Cork professional Eddie Dunbar retires from cycling, he has a bright future ahead of him as a motivational speaker, teaching people about resilience. The 28-year-old Banteer man has had more ups and downs in his career than Blackpool’s Big Dipper, but to paraphrase the Tubthumping British band Chumbawamba, Dunbar somehow manages to get back up again every time he gets knocked down.
His wide smile, affable nature and slight stature belie the teak-toughness that earned Dunbar a first Grand Tour stage win at the Vuelta a Espana last week, just a couple of months after his seventh crash in a year saw him contemplate, not for the first time, hanging up his wheels for good.
“It wasn’t a particularly fast crash, but I came down on my knee hard and did a lot of damage,” Dunbar recalls of the incident when the rider in front of him slid out on a gravelled corner on the second stage of the Giro d’Italia in May.
Despite the pain, Dunbar got back up again and kept riding.
“I was worried about my shoulder and my hand first, [both of which he has broken twice before], but I kind of knew when I got back on the bike … as the race went on, I lost a lot of power in my right leg and my patellar tendon had a deep wound, that was the main worry, so I got an MRI, which showed I had a grade two injury in my lateral cruciate ligament.”
Having started the race hoping to improve on last year’s seventh place overall, Dunbar’s Giro was over and he was back in familiar territory – square one.
But the Giro crash wasn’t Dunbar’s first rodeo. In fact, he has enough scars to put a decent cowboy to shame. Eddie always gets back in the saddle, it just takes longer sometimes.
As well as breaking his hand and collarbone twice each over the years and being forced off the bike for long spells with injury and illness, he spent much of 2017 battling concussion.
“That went on for a long while,” he says of a season where he couldn’t train, sleep or eat properly for months and suffered mood swings, headaches and panic attacks. That was probably the toughest period. Some effects from that crash will always stay with me, but thankfully, it’s a long time ago now and I’m out the other side of it.”
“When you’re injured, it’s not a case that you can go off on holiday and enjoy yourself,” he says. “You’ve put a lot of work into being ready for a race and then, all of a sudden, you’re out and you can’t do anything. I went away with my girlfriend for a few days after I crashed out of the Giro, but I literally couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t walk.
“It’s not like you’re having a break. It’s the constant building back up, rehab, [and] everything that goes with it … an accumulation of that is tough.
“It got to a point where it was hurting mentally and physically and you start questioning things. I was thinking of doing something else, something that didn’t involve hitting the deck at 50/60kph and taking weeks to recover.
Choice
“I was just sick of setbacks, the crashes and stuff. But every cyclist has their own battles. You have to make a choice. You either harden up and just get on with it or you don’t. Simple as.”
A prolific winner at underage, junior and under-23 levels, Paddy Power offered odds of Dunbar winning the Tour de France before he even turned professional. When he did turn pro, it was with an Irish-backed team, AquaBlue, but the dream turned into a nightmare when they folded halfway through his debut season.
Dunbar’s results, however, saw him snapped up by the all-conquering Team Sky in 2018. It looked like he had finally made the big time. Instead, he spent four years languishing in the shadow of Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas.
Despite finishing third on a stage of the 2019 Giro, his debut Grand Tour, he wouldn’t ride another one until last year when he moved to the Aussie-backed Jayco-Alula squad and finished seventh overall on his second attempt.
“I always feel like I’m a good bit behind the guys my age, who are winning a lot of the races now,” he says from his hotel room on the second rest day of the Vuelta á Espana.
“I have done nowhere near as much racing as them guys. I’ve always said that, once I get a good run of racing, I’ll get to a level [where] I know I can compete. The Vuelta came up pretty quickly in the end, but I’ve been through a good training period, from nationals all the way to Tour of Burgos a week before.
“Everything went really well. I was doing a good bit of racing, building up slowly. I didn’t have a great result in Burgos but I knew my condition was good. It was just a matter of getting it all to click.”
Dunbar’s hopes of a high overall placing dissipated in the heat of Grenada in the opening week, before everything clicked on the road to Padron last Wednesday. In the last 600m of stage 11, Dunbar left the remnants of a 37-man breakaway for dead and stormed to his first Grand Tour stage win.
“I never thought I’d win a stage in that fashion and I didn’t really expect it from a 37-man group,” he admits. “Normally, I’m quite honest in the amount of work I do if I’m on a break, but this break was massive. Israel had four guys in it and George Bennett wanted to move up on GC, so it was their responsibility to hold the gap, which helped everyone in the break.
“Then, it was a matter of getting to the climb. Because I’d been climbing well on certain days, I think a lot of people were expecting me to attack on the climb, but thankfully, Pippo got into a move before that, so having him up the road meant I could just follow on the climb.
Attacked
“I knew all along that if it d id come down to a smaller group I’d fancy my chances in a gallop, which might sound strange. I rode the finale really well, didn’t touch the wind until I attacked with 600m to go.
“Because it was a circuit, we’d done the last 3km a couple of times, so I knew the road bent around to the right and had pinpointed what I was going to do if it came down to it. I think my head won me the race, as opposed to my legs.
“I didn’t even know I had a gap. I just assumed fellas followed me straight away. I was waiting for somebody to jump around me. As it went on, I could see the finish, I looked back and there was actually no one there. I thought, ‘There’s a chance here’.
“Next thing I knew, I had 100m to go. I looked back again and realised I was going to win the stage, it was mad. Just to get the hands in the air was a big relief and to do it in a race like the Vuelta, a Grand Tour, made it even more special.”
Since then, Dunbar has clawed his way up the leaderboard and is currently 15th overall, torn between chasing another stage and trying to better his GC position in this final week.
“There’s still an element of GC racing that I feel I can get better at,” he says. “I’ve climbed up the GC quite a bit the last week and it would be nice to keep going in that direction.
“I’ve felt I’ve been getting better every day, climbing with the best guys, so it kind of tells me that three-week racing is still for me, but I’ll find out this week.
“It would be nice to get into the top ten, but it’s going to be difficult. It’s been the hardest race I’ve done so far in my career. It’s nice knowing that if you do have a bad day on a Grand Tour, then you just have to keep the head, there’s still stuff to be won.
“Just knowing I can get myself into that situation and come out on top sometimes, makes you think different.
“When you’ve had a run of bad luck and you don’t really see a change in that luck for a long time, days like last Wednesday shine a bit of light on the dark moments and it makes it all worth it.”
“You either harden up and just get on with it or you don’t. Simple as” Eddie Dunbar