Dunbar's Second Vuelta Stage Win Makes it 5 for Giant!
In a thrilling finale on the brutally steep gradients of the Picón Blanco, the final summit finish of this year’s final Grand Tour, the Team Jayco AlUla rider attacked from a powerful group of GC favorites with just under 5km remaining and quickly opened a substantial 15-second gap.
Piloting his Propel Advanced SL bike with a CADEX Max 40 WheelSystem up gradients exceeding 8 percent, Dunbar reeled in the final rider from the breakaway with 2.5km remaining and then held off the General Classification leaders by a 7-second margin to claim Stage 20, the queen stage of this year’s Vuelta with more than 5,000 meters of elevation gain. The Irishman word his Giant Rev Pro helmet for the win.
The victory came 10 days after Dunbar’s stage win in Padrón, and just two days after Spaniard Urko Berrade took a third stage win for Kern Pharma, adding to the Spanish team’s tally after Pablo Castrillo rode to victory on Stages 12 and 15.
For all four riders, winning a stage win at the Vuelta was the most significant of their professional career. All five wins were solo victories, and all five were taken on the aerodynamic Propel Advanced SL frames and CADEX WheelSystems.
“This one definitely feels a bit sweeter,” Dunbar said when comparing his stage wins. “I said to a few people after the stage win last week that it was never a way I imagined to win a Grand Tour stage, I always imagined winning on top of a climb. I just backed myself on that climb. I paced myself really well. I knew that climb from a few years ago. I just paced the steep parts pretty hard and I rode the flat bits just making sure not to totally empty the tank.”
Dunbar finished the Vuelta 11th overall, while José Félix Parra was the top finisher for Kern Pharma in 17th place.
In addition to Dunbar’s two stage wins, Mauro Schmid and Filippo Zana also delivered Team Jayco AlUla to three second-place stage finishes between them. In addition, Schmid rode a prototype Giant Trinity time trial bike to a fifth-place finish in the final TT stage in Madrid.
When Berrade won Stage 18, four of the top-10 finishers on the stage were on Giant Propel Advanced SL bikes with CADEX WheelSystems, with Schmid finishing second. Berrade’s teammates Castrillo and Pau Miquel were also in the front group, finishing eighth and ninth respectively.
Giant has sponsored Team Jayco AlUla since 2022, and has sponsored the Kern Pharma squad since it was founded in 2020.
