Day 1 – Althofen – Time Trial – 11 km
The Alpe Adria Tour was my first ever international race back in 2023, and I instantly fell in love with it. That feeling hasn’t gone away. I was really disappointed to miss it last year, especially because I skipped it for another big international race at home, one I’d worked hard for and really wanted to do… and then the day before departure they told me “maybe next time.” That made it hurt even more, so this year I was even more excited to be back in the Alpe Adria Tour 2025.
There are well-organised races, and then there are really well-organised races. This one is not just prestigious, safe, and perfectly run, it’s also got something extra. Maybe it’s because it brings back memories of my first international race experience. But here, everything just has that little bit more. Paco Wrolich puts on the kind of race every rider dreams about. Everything is done to make you enjoy yourself… while working your legs off, because the start list is full of riders that make even last place an honour. We’ve got the Pogi Team UAE Generali, Adria Mobil, ARBÖ Panaceo KAC, Factor Racing, the North Macedonia national team, strong Italian squads… From Hungary, there’s Csömör, DKSI, Green Riders, and the MBH Bank Cycling Team in U19. The competition is top-class: 250 riders from 17 countries.
Everything is clearly done for us riders. Roads fully closed to traffic – even though traffic here is light anyway – plenty of time to check the course, proper warm-up space. Even the race numbers were the perfect size and made of cloth, not sticking above the jersey pocket and catching the wind. Six safety pins included. We always have pins, but it’s nice when organisers think about these little details. The active timing chip could handle a thousand finish times at once. We didn’t need that today, but it will matter tomorrow and Sunday. And the results were online instantly, with the link shared in a WhatsApp group with every team and rider before the race.
That’s just the first hundred reasons why I love racing here – and I haven’t even listed them all.
Today’s stage was an 11 km time trial. Because many teams came with limited logistics, the organisers set the rules: no TT bikes, no clip-on aerobars, no disc wheels. TT clothing and helmets were fine, but hands had to be on the bars according to UCI road race rules. This way it came down to rider ability, not equipment. I like the idea – even though I’ve got a good TT bike. It’s not unusual either; I’ve raced under similar rules abroad, like at the Giro del Veneto Juniores.
My start time was 15:33:00, with riders going off every 30 seconds. No shade anywhere, Garmin showing 37°C. The course was 11 km with about 54 metres of climbing, about double the elevation of the Hungarian Nationals TT in Debrecen. The plan in a TT is simple: ride full gas.
Ahead of me was a rider from the Macedonian National Team. We didn’t start from the ground or with a holder, but from a metal barrier, clipped in and ready. It took away any chance of human error at the start.
I got a good start and held my target watts the whole way. On the way back, I caught the Macedonian rider, which gave me a boost. I passed him in the final 500 metres, pushed even harder, and sprinted the last 150 metres.
My time was 14:43, which means 44.85 km/h average on a regular road bike. That put me 23rd overall, and the best Hungarian in U19.
Tomorrow we will have two races. In the morning, another time trial: 3 laps of a technical 2.8 km circuit (8.6 km total) with 45 metres climbing each lap, lots of corners, climbs, descents, and hairpins. Starts every 20 seconds, so the course will be full of us.
Then at 19:45, a 6.6 km mountain race with about 500 metres climbing. And Sunday, a 72.8 km road race: 7 laps of a 10.4 km loop, around 200 metres climbing each lap.
I plan to update this page every day (if I’ve still got the time and energy).
So please Come back on Saturday and Sunday for new race reports!
Day 2 – Villach – Time Trial and Mountain Road Race (Stages 2a and 2b)
I’ll keep it short because we’re racing again tomorrow, and today didn’t really go my way. Or, depending on how you see it, maybe not a disaster either… but fact is, I dropped in the GC. So here’s the short version.
The day started with time trials on a built circuit in Villach. Super technical, perfect asphalt. U19 riders were on in the afternoon. My official start time was 13:39:00, but a technical issue pushed everything back by 10 minutes. We went off every 20 seconds, and the organisers had a clever system to let us enter the live traffic on the course safely, and also exit without disruption when our laps were done.
The forecast said 29°C, Garmin showed 47, so reality was somewhere around 34–35. The course was genuinely technical: short climbs, a hairpin, a chicane, sweeping fast bends, and some descents. The local club trains here regularly. With starts every 20 seconds the course filled up quickly. Sometimes that helped, if you could catch the draft of someone just finishing their lap, sometimes not, when you ended up behind someone slower.
To keep it short and simple: even though I did a test ride, I just couldn’t find the rhythm to use the ups, downs and corners to my advantage. The watts were there, more than enough, but I didn’t manage to turn the technical parts into time gains. I finished only 48th, which dropped me from 23rd to 36th in GC.
Stage 2b was in the evening, starting at 19:45. A short but brutal mountain race: 6.6 km with 490 metres of climbing. Start positions were based on GC, so I rolled off from 36th place. No neutral zone, we hit the main road straight away, fully closed to traffic.
Day 3 – Ottmanach – Road Race
After a good start on day one and a not so successful day two, it was time for the final stage of the race. Seven laps, each 10.4 km, total distance 72.8 km, with 1,218 metres of climbing.
The original start time was 14:00, but the weather apps all showed heavy rain around 2 p.m. And right after the start there was a big descent with a narrowing road and several corners. In the wet, water runs across that section. The organisers wanted to avoid unnecessary risks, so they decided to move the start forward.
At first, nobody knew exactly when we would start. The plan was: as soon as the last rider from the U17 boys and U19 girls finished, we would line up and go. So we had to pay attention to the announcements while warming up nearby. At one point they said 13:30, then 13:20, in the end it became 13:15. Totally understandable, I think it was really important to put safety first. The only tricky part was with food and supplements, because some things I normally eat at a fixed time before the start. This time the timing was impossible to get right, but of course it was the same for everyone. No real advantage or disadvantage, just a bit harder to manage the pre-race nutrition.
So, the start was at 13:15. We lined up according to the GC standings, which meant 34th place for me. Compared to two years ago, the start line was moved a few hundred metres down the road, just before the climb. That way the field would already be stretched before the big descent. And there was no slow roll-out, because that would have made the neutralisation end right on the downhill. Still, the pace was high, everyone pushed hard on the climb, and we arrived at the descent in one big bunch.
From the back it wasn’t too bad for me, because everyone was risking it in the corners. I even heard the familiar “occhio, occhio” shouts you often hear in Italian races, and sure enough, riders were diving through. In one corner on the inside line, between me and a roadside pole, an Italian guy squeezed through. Since I had no chance to move up much in the GC, I decided not to risk a crash in those downhill corners. I knew the price would be to work harder uphill.
We came through the first lap together. Again I stayed at the back on the descents, and of course the moment came when we lost the front of the bunch, and from then on it was a fight uphill. My gap started growing, and it stayed like that until the finish. A previous injury I’d been struggling with last week also came back. I was hoping it wouldn’t, but every time I got out of the saddle it hurt badly. My legs were good, but I couldn’t put the power down properly. The gap kept growing, and there was nothing I could do. I pushed, but there was no reward.
In the end I finished 46th. That was a much bigger disappointment than I wanted to take home, but that’s how it ended. It really hit me hard, because this is one of my favourite races, and since it’s U19, I won’t get the chance to race it again next year. Still, I recommend it to everyone, because it’s such a well-organised series. Every rider should experience it.
