The 22° Giro del Friuli Venezia Giulia Juniores 2024 was originally scheduled to be a 4-day race, but the May 30 time trial, which was set to take place on an open velodrome with banked turns, was canceled due to rain. This was my third race in Italy, and I was really looking forward to it.
The first (technically second) stage was 91 km with 266 meters of elevation.
In Italy, they always pay great attention to the details, and the pre-race celebrations are always spectacular and impressive. For example, this is how our team was introduced:
My task was to support Zsombor Takács, who was going for the overall classification. I stayed with him throughout the race.
It was quite an interesting stage. First, we rode out of the city, covering about 25 kilometers, where we did a loop, and then headed back to Zoppola for four more laps around the city. Shortly after the start, it began pouring rain, which quickly turned into hail. The hail hit us so hard that our arms were hurting.
For once, it was actually an advantage that I still hadn’t received my open helmet (it hadn’t arrived in my size yet), so I raced with a closed one. Normally, in warm weather, it’s unbearable, but in this hailstorm, it made a difference.
This is what it looked like in practice:
When we returned to Zoppola for the circuit laps, positioning became really difficult in the rain. As we approached one of the roundabouts, I went in from the left, and Zsombi took the right side. That’s just how it worked out. But there was a road defect on the edge that was completely hidden by a puddle, and it caught his wheel, causing a crash. In the picture, you can see the moment Zsombi goes down on the far side of the roundabout, while I (wearing number 23) look on in despair as he sprawls out like a frog.
I was hoping he’d be able to get back on the bike, and I knew that if the bike was still in one piece, Zsombi would catch up to us. And that’s exactly what happened.
The rain finally stopped, though at that point it didn’t make much difference, except we could at least see something. We finished the next lap together with Zsombi.
(Apologies for the picture quality—these frames were pulled from video footage.)
The peloton stayed pretty much together for the finish. In the last 200 meters, Zsombi moved ahead to sprint, while we were further back. Then, just 150 meters from the line, in a chicane, right where a small section of the road had been resurfaced, someone slipped on the wet patch. This caused a massive crash right in front of us. The picture quality isn’t great, but you can see the key moment.
We were incredibly lucky to avoid the crash. I had to brake hard as someone came across in front of me, but I managed to steer clear of it.
In the end, Zsombi finished in a strong position, and I crossed the line as the third rider from our team, placing 23rd in the bunch.
By the numbers: 91 km in hail, 266 meters of elevation, 45.4 km/h average speed, and 218 watts average power (including zeros).
On the second day, the course was 106 km with 2,262 meters of elevation. We started in Porcia, and after a bit of flat terrain, we began climbing. At least it wasn’t raining this time. But just to keep things from getting too easy, I got a flat tire after 30 kilometers. The team car arrived quickly, and I got a wheel change, but they happened to hand me an aluminum rear wheel, so I ended up riding with carbon up front and aluminum in the back.
The peloton was pushing full gas the entire time, so the time lost wasn’t ideal, and having to chase back on my own didn’t help either. But that’s racing.
Managed to catch up to the peloton, but it took a lot out of me. What’s more, I felt like I was pedaling with good legs, and the power meter was showing solid numbers, but I just wasn’t moving as I should have. I’ll explain why in a moment, but for now, let’s stick to what happened on the course.
In the end, I crossed the finish line in a bad position but still within the time limit, which meant I could start on the final day. First, let’s look at the numbers, then I’ll reveal what caused my watts to disappear.
So why wasn’t the bike moving when I was pedaling, even though the power meter said it should have been?
What I didn’t know during the race, but only found out once I got home, was that when we were swapping the wheels back to the training set, I realized I couldn’t pedal properly. At first, I thought the wheel bearing had seized. But it did the same thing with the other wheel, and even when I took the wheel and chain off, the pedal barely turned. It should have been spinning freely under its own weight, but it took real physical effort to get it to move—almost like the brakes were constantly dragging.
At the service center, they took the bike apart and discovered that the bottom bracket had likely flooded during the first day’s hailstorm. The bearing was completely seized up. Instead of turning the bearing spindle, I was rotating the entire bearing inside the frame. So all that power wasn’t going into the road—it was being used to grind down the bike’s frame. The frame had to be repaired, and the bottom bracket replaced.
But the issue wasn’t discovered until after the race, and that’s when it got fixed. So while I finished on day two, on day three, I couldn’t even make it to the end, as the broom wagon pulled me out about halfway through. It is what it is.
Enough about the bad stuff, though. On the upside, Takács Zsombor finished 5th on both Stage 3 and Stage 4, securing the overall win and taking home the yellow jersey. It was a well-deserved victory, and not even his crash on day one could stop him. He raced with great tactics, stayed calm, and kept his power throughout. We gave Zsombi a hero’s welcome after his win!
