As Felix Ritzinger won a race in Poland, aero innovator Jan-Willem van Schip was a DSQ at the Heistse Pijl, where he had his latest clash with the UCI
A few months ago, we reported on a radical new handlebar that, in the ongoing game of cat and mouse between the UCI and tech innovators, adapted to the latest rules to offer a highly unusual, aerodynamic, and legal position on a road bike.
The handlebar came from Toot engineering, and the recently-released latest iteration, the Ashaa RR, has had some outings in the pro peloton in recent weeks, to differing effects.
On the one hand, it has now won two races courtesy of Felix Ritzinger, who rides for the Continental-level team Felt-Felbermayr, and clinched a stage at the Tour Malopolska at the weekend. On the very same day, the bar was used by Jan-Willem van Ship (Parkhotel-Valkenburg) in the Heitste Pijl, a race from which he was disqualified.
It was initially unclear exactly why Van Schip, who helped develop the bars and gave them plenty of visibility as he launched a couple of attacks, was disqualified, having initially been listed in 66th place on the results sheet. His team didn’t even know he had been disqualified, when we reached out to them, and nor did Toot.
The race organisers indicated that his position on the bars was to blame, and several days later Toot told us that he had fallen foul of article 2.2.025 of the UCI's regulations, which covers 'position on the bicycle' and states: "Riders must observe the standard position as defined by article 1.3.008. Sitting on the bicycle’s top tube is prohibited. Furthermore, using the forearms as a point of support on the handlebar is prohibited except in time trials."
In the photograph at the top of this article, which was not from Heistse Pijl but a race in Holland in mid-May, Van Schip can clearly be seen resting his forearms on the bars, even if his hands are still also in contact with the hoods, unlike the outlawed 'puppy paws position'.
In and of itself, the bar is UCI legal and has been homolgated as part of the equipment registration process for the Paris Olympics. Still, it's certainly attracting the attention of the UCI.
“He has a confirmation and permission from the UCI," insisted a representative for Parkhotel-Valnekburg of the handlebar. "In some races, the UCI is checking it again and again: but always with the same result: it’s between the rules.”
It’s worth noting that Van Schip has been chucked out of a race for his wild handlebars in the past. That was at the 2021 Belgium Tour, where he used the Speeco Aero Breakaway Bar, which essentially featured dedicated forearm rests and was outlawed as an illegal point of support.
Van Schip had already been a pioneer of the extremely-narrow handlebar trend, which caused the UCI to tinker with its rulebook and set a minimum width of 350mm. When riders like Van Schip found a way around this by turning their hoods and levers inwards at aggressive angles, a maximum lever angle was set at 10 degrees off the natural plane of the bar.
Now Van Schip has found a new way to achieve his favoured position, helping Toot to design the Ashaa RR.
The distance between the bar-ends stands at 350mm, but the drops flare aggressively inwards, which together with the maxed-out lever angle, creates a width of 210mm from hood to hood. The forward thrust of the bars, which is a toned-down imitation of the Speeco ABB, give the bars a reach of 240mm. That’s without the wildly long stem used by Van Schip.
The bars help the rider tuck their arms inside the frame of their body, with the hands sitting close together on the hoods and relatively close to the chin. It’s a position that approaches a time trial set-up, with a closed frontal area of the body as opposed to a standard wide-reach, low-drop set-up.
While Van Schip will have to be more careful with his forearm position, he also appears to be flying close to another UCI rule, which dictates the forward-most point of the bar must not extend horizontally further than 100mm beyond the vertical plane rising from the hub of the front wheel. Van Schip’s bars have been attached to a long and up-angled stem that extends his reach on the bike.
The Ashaa was first conceived in 2020, with a patent registered in 2021 and granted in 2023. The bar started out as a track cycling product, and was later developed for use on the road, using 3D-printed steel for greater customisation possible. It is now offered in a carbon fibre version, too.
Toot says it was tested as per UCI standards with load and fatigue testing equipment from Litem, and has been homologated for the upcoming Paris Olympics. There is a claimed saving of 30 watts at 45kph for Van Schip.
While the 3D-printed steel version costs a whopping €1,390, the carbon version costs €429 off the shelf.
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