The Titanium Handlebars taking over the World Tour
12th Jan 2024
If you take a look at the Colnago TT1 of the Team UAE Emirates squad, the Trinity Advanced Pro of Greenedge Cycling, or even some of the AUS Cycling Team, you’ll see a slick set of titanium bars as the cockpit. The EVO PRO.
Rolling down the start ramp for Stage 20 of the Giro d’Italia, Joao Almeida is sitting 59 seconds back in his quest for the Pink Jersey. With a third place in the TT that started the race, it’s not impossible that he’ll be in the pink jersey come Sunday evening in Rome. While we’re expecting to see a bike change at the foot of thee 7.3km Mount Lussari, the first 11km is fast and will all be done on the TT1 with EVO PRO extensions.
What is the EVO PRO?
A high-performance, modular design, CNC machined and 3D Printed Titanium TT extensions that are developed with nine different setup configurations to optimise aerodynamic performance.
Position optimization has long been the aim of the game for time trial performance. With the development of the EVO PRO, we have used our bike fitting experience as well as research with World Tour riders to create a product which fits the unique requirements of the athletes and teams we work with.
Greenedge Cycling (Jayco Alula)
As Australia’s only World Tour team, we’re proud to say that we have continued our relationship with Jayco-Alula into 2023.
Building on from our custom-designed and 3D-printed Ti extensions, we always had the goal of turning this product into something that is more commercially viable and can be utilised more extensively by the Greenedge team.
A lesson from the custom design work was the knowledge of the geometry that achieves the closest tracking of the extension to the forearm, and geometry that maximised within the UCI position regulations.
UAE Team Emirates
For the 2023 season, we started working with UAE Team Emirates to maximise the rider’s position on the Colnago TT1. From Tadej Pogacar to Joao Almeida, Jay Vine and Mikkel Bjerg, every member of the team is rocking a set of the EVO PRO.
The change in UCI TT Rules, which benefits the rider and is more lenient than ever before, means we had to consider both the geometry and build options for the EVO PRO. We are proud to offer a solution that delivers a wide range of position options allowing thee athletes the ability to sit right at the upper limit (height and length) of the UCI rules.
Team UAE Emirates have demonstrated the viability of the product across their athletes this season. Jay Vine rode them to the Elite Men’s Australian National Title, and both Almeida and Pogacar will be going for Grand Tour glory aboard them.
AUS Cycling
Following a difficult Olympic cycle in Tokyo, AUS Cycling needed a technical partner that could deliver a performance-orientated handlebar that meets existing safety standards. While that’s all we can say for the moment, be on the lookout at the Track World Championships in Glasgow this August.
Credits
Images by @SprintCycling & @fizzaazzif
About the author
Joe Laverick’s cycling introduction was via the British time-trial scene, since starting the sport, he has been all about speed. He’s a freelance writer and privateer racer who mixes road, time trial and gravel racing. To this day, he remains one of the only riders on the planet to have beat Remco Evenepoel in a time trial.