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>Giulia: Hop on. I could use the extra weight.
What does she exactly mean by: "I could use the extra weight."? What is she referring to? Could you please paraphrase it?
Giulia is talking to Ercole who is teasing Giulia for not succeeding in the race last year. Giulia is defending Luca and Alberto (to whom she says: Hop on!) and taking them (who are being harassed by Ercole) with her. Giulia just met Alerto and Luca.
Hope this will help.
The expression could use indicates that the subject will benefit from the object. For example, if your were thirsty, you you might say
I could use a cold drink right now!
So, Giulia's sentence means that she thinks that she will gain some advantage by having the extra weight of Luca and Alberto on her cart.
Without more context, I can only guess what advantage she sees. One possible advantage would be if she wants to win next year's cycling race, and she is training for it by pulling a cart with a lot of weight on it. Having extra weight on the cart that she is pulling will make the training more effective.
Or maybe she is just making up an excuse for inviting them onto the cart, so that she can carry them away from Ercole.
