The Debrief

Welcome to The Debrief, a new series on Grassdune. Every edition reconstructs one remarkable activity through the athlete’s FIT file, performance data and personal reflections. As you read along, you can explore Lars’ complete activity yourself at the bottom of this post, including the power file, lap data and graphs discussed throughout this article.

For this first edition, Lars Quaedvlieg was kind enough to share his complete race file and answer a couple of questions about his podium finish in Visegrád 4 Kerékpárverseny (UCI 1.2).

Most cycling fans know (kind of) how hard it is to race at the Tour de France. But many underestimate the level just below the WorldTour.

UCI 1.2 races don’t make many headlines, but don’t let that fool you. These races are seriously hard. Continental teams chasing UCI points. Young riders hoping to earn a professional contract. And some teams that simply love racing bikes and everything that comes with it.

Universe Cycling Team belongs to that last category. Rather than following the traditional Continental calendar, they travel wherever the racing takes them, hence the name Universe. They race because they love racing. Different countries, different cultures, different races. Performances matter, of course, but so does the adventure.
Their Instagram (@universe_ct) captures that spirit. Not polished sponsor content, but the kind of cycling that reminds you why many of us fell in love with the sport in the first place.

In this Debrief we’ll reconstruct Lars’ race from start to finish. Using his activity data, race metrics and his own reflections, we’ll break down what it really took to stand on the podium alongside Luca Cretti and Alessandro Verre, yes, the same Alessandro Verre who finished second on the Finestre stage of the 2025 Giro d’Italia.

So, what does it actually take to share the podium with a rider of that calibre?
Let’s find out.

The race at a glance
Before diving into the data, it’s worth understanding the challenge Lars was up against. The Visegrád 4 Kerékpárverseny startlist consisted of 1 UCI ProTeam (MBH Bank Ballan CSB Telecom), 10 Continental teams and 13 club teams.

The course itself offered little room for recovery. Riders first completed seven laps of a larger circuit, before finishing with two shorter finishing laps. Both circuits included the race’s defining moment: a 1-kilometre climb averaging 9.7%, meaning the climb had to be done nine times throughout the day.
After 3 hours, 52 minutes and 5 seconds of racing, the podium looked like this:
🥇 Luca Cretti MBH Bank Ballan CSB Telecom
🥈 Alessandro Verre MBH Bank Ballan CSB Telecom (+16s)
🥉 Lars Quaedvlieg Universe Cycling Team (")
Behind them followed another MBH rider, Márton Dina, just one second later, underlining the dominance of the Italian ProTeam throughout the race.

So what did it take to be on the podium with a rider like Alessandro Verre?
First thing I noticed: 205 watts average?! That can’t be right… For context, Lars weighs 63 kg. 205 watts doesn’t scream “podium in a UCI race.”

Then I noticed the normalized power: 70 watts higher. That immediately tells you this wasn’t one long threshold effort. This was a race of constant braking, accelerating, recovering, attacking and hanging on for dear life. And that’s exactly how Lars described it.

The race exploded almost immediately. The first two laps were ridden at a furious pace, with the second ascent averaging 465 W (7.4 W/kg) for 2 minutes and 35 seconds. The damage was immediate: after just two laps, only around 30 riders remained in the first peloton, while roughly 50 riders had already been dropped.

Then, typical cycling chaos happened. An open railway crossing forced the bunch to stop, allowing all the dropped riders to return. Fortunately, there was one lonely policeman standing guard to keep an entire peloton of cyclists in check if the lights would start flashing. Unthinkable in most Western European races, but nothing that made the Universe riders panic. They’ve seen far stranger things on their travels. As soon as the race restarted, four riders attacked, including Lars’ teammate Wessel Lange. They quickly built a lead of two to three minutes while MBH controlled the peloton behind. Eventually, the break was brought back just before the final local laps.
Once the race entered the final two local laps, things really exploded. The breakaway was caught, the pace immediately increased again, and another major selection followed. After the climb, only four riders remained off the front: Erik Fetter, Luca Cretti, Dominik Neumann and Lars Quaedvlieg.

Cretti then launched the decisive attack, riding solo to victory. Behind him, the chase group containing eventual second through ninth place came back together before the final ascent.

On those last two local laps, with 3 hours and 40 minutes already in the legs, he averaged 383 NP for almost 20 minutes. That is 6.1 W/kg. His final three ascents were completed at an average of 450 W, 420 W and 475 W respectively, big numbers after nearly four hours of racing.

On the last ascent MBH seemed to be on its way to do a full podium but Lars still had one final effort left. In the sprint for the remaining podium places, Lars produced 623 watts for 21 seconds, peaking at 749 watts, to overhaul Márton Dina in the closing metres and secure third place. Not quite a bunch sprint winning sprint, but note the effort that Lars is already coming off!
Looking at the power file, it’s easy to see why the average power doesn’t tell the full story. The race wasn’t won by riding hard for four hours, it was won by surviving every decisive acceleration and still having enough left in the end.

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Every remarkable activity has a story. If you’ve done, or know someone who has done, a race, ride or adventure worth sharing, I’d love to hear from you. The next Debrief might be yours.

Send me a DM or email me at arne@grassdune.com.