US junior time trial and highway champion Ashlin Barry hit the accelerator on his path to the WorldTour, signing a multi-year take care of Visma-Lease a Bike this week.
In 2025, the 17-year-old will compete for the Dutch-based junior squad that companions with Visma-Lease a Bike, JEGG-SKIL-DJR Academy. After finishing his remaining 12 months as a junior, Barry will transition in 2026 to Visma’s improvement staff, which competes on the Continental stage, or leap to the highest tier.
“That is the primary time we now have signed somebody so younger immediately for our WorldTeam,” Robbert de Groot, head of improvement at Staff Visma-Lease a Bike, stated in a staff press launch.
“We see immense expertise in Ashlin, together with important room for progress. We’re subsequently more than happy that he shall be a part of our staff within the coming years. It displays our confidence in Ashlin’s potential and underscores our perception in long-term collaborations. Solely by working intently with a expertise from a younger age can we fulfill their most potential.”
This previous season Barry moved to EF Schooling-ONTO, the junior racing programme based mostly out of South Carolina. He earned GC wins at Valley of the Solar stage race in Arizona after which Tour du Bocage et de l’Ernée in France, his first total at a UCI stage race, then took a prime 10 at Paris-Roubaix Juniors earlier than sweeping two of three highway occasions at US Nationals.
Barry is the son of profitable professional cyclists and Olympians Michael Barry, of Canada, and Deirdre ‘Dede’ Demet-Barry, of USA. With twin citizenship, Barry dedicated to a USA Biking racing licence for 2024, scoring three gold medals in January at The Subsequent Era occasion within the Netherlands, within the Elimination, Skratch and Tempo races, and a pair of silvers in pursuit occasions. He additionally swept the junior and elite titles with Enzo Edmonds at US Madison Observe championships.
The transition to gravel was spectacular, with a 3rd at Paris To Ancaster and later a formidable victory at Blue Mountains Gravel Fondo, a part of the UCI Gravel World Sequence, forward of Canadian Benjamin Perry and Brennan Wertz, who later received the US gravel nationwide title.
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“Staff Visma-Lease a Bike is really a dream staff. It’s extremely inspiring to signal with the identical staff as riders like Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard. They’re nice examples of how one can develop additional inside this staff,” Barry said within the staff’s press launch.
“After all, I’m nonetheless very younger and within the strategy of discovering my specialties. I consider the classics and time trials would possibly go well with me finest, however I’m assured that this staff is the right option to information me on that journey.”
Barry grew up in Toronto, Ontario the place he and his siblings have been inspired to play a number of sports activities, and didn’t concentrate on biking till he was a youngster. He spoke to Cyclingnews within the spring about his pursuits in a number of disciplines in biking as he seemed a future profession within the sport, calling it ‘distant’ on the time.
“I positively wish to race professionally. It’s exhausting to know what I can accomplish because it appears very distant. I’d like to mix racing on the highway and monitor,” he instructed Cyclingnews, admitting his highway focus for spring 2025 was a victory on the junior Paris-Roubaix race.
“The Olympics in 2028 are an enormous aim for me to look in the direction of, however there are loads of objectives I’ve earlier than that. Racing with EF Schooling-ONTO for the reason that begin of final 12 months has been a very nice expertise for me. I’ve discovered lots and had excellent assist.”
Rusty Miller has been the staff director of EF Schooling-ONTO for over a decade and gauges success not a lot in victories however in nurturing younger adults with racing skills and life expertise. He stated Barry was forward of the curve in each.
“We’re proud to see Ashlin’s ascent to the World Tour stage. He’s an unbelievable rider and an ideal human being,” Miller instructed Cyclingnews. “We’ll all get pleasure from watching his progress within the upcoming years as we proceed to carry alongside the following crop of North American abilities already inside our program.”
The “improvement pyramid” supplied by Visma-Lease a Bike turned out to be a golden alternative for the rising expertise to hurry up the clock on his professional profession.
“Whether or not and the way lengthy he’ll race for the Improvement Staff and when he’ll step as much as the WorldTour will rely on his progress,” De Groot defined. “Due to our improvement pyramid, which features a junior, improvement, and WorldTeam, we are able to stay versatile and supply riders like Ashlin a tailor-made pathway to additional their progress.”
