US junior time trial and highway champion Ashlin Barry hit the accelerator on his path to the WorldTour, signing a multi-year cope with 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 last 12 months as a junior, Barry will transition in 2026 to Visma’s improvement group, which competes on the Continental degree, or leap to the highest tier.
“This is the primary time we’ve signed somebody so younger straight for our WorldTeam,” Robbert de Groot, head of improvement at Team Visma-Lease a Bike, mentioned in a group press launch.
“We see immense expertise in Ashlin, together with important room for development. We are subsequently very happy that he will likely be a part of our group within the coming years. It displays our confidence in Ashlin’s potential and underscores our perception in long-term collaborations. Only by working carefully with a expertise from a younger age can we fulfill their most potential.”
This previous season Barry moved to EF Education-ONTO, the junior racing programme based mostly out of South Carolina. He earned GC wins at Valley of the Sun 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 Cycling racing licence for 2024, scoring three gold medals in January at The Next Generation 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 Track 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 Series, forward of Canadian Benjamin Perry and Brennan Wertz, who later received the US gravel nationwide title.
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“Team Visma-Lease a Bike is actually a dream group. It’s extremely inspiring to signal with the identical group as riders like Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard. They are nice examples of how one can develop additional inside this group,” Barry said within the group’s press launch.
“Of course, I’m nonetheless very younger and within the means of discovering my specialties. I imagine the classics and time trials would possibly swimsuit me finest, however I’m assured that this group is the right option to information me on that journey.”
Barry grew up in Toronto, Ontario the place he and his siblings had been inspired to play a number of sports activities, and did not give attention to biking till he was an adolescent. He spoke to Cyclingnews within the spring about his pursuits in a number of disciplines in biking as he appeared a future profession within the sport, calling it ‘distant’ on the time.
“I positively wish to race professionally. It’s onerous to know what I can accomplish because it appears very distant. I’d like to mix racing on the highway and observe,” 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 objective for me to look in the direction of, however there are lots of objectives I’ve earlier than that. Racing with EF Education-ONTO because the begin of final 12 months has been a very nice expertise for me. I’ve discovered loads and had superb help.”
Rusty Miller has been the group director of EF Education-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 mentioned Barry was forward of the curve in each.
“We are proud to see Ashlin’s ascent to the World Tour degree. He’s an unbelievable rider and an awesome human being,” Miller instructed Cyclingnews. “We will all take pleasure in watching his progress within the upcoming years as we proceed to carry alongside the subsequent 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 and the way lengthy he’ll race for the Development Team and when he’ll step as much as the WorldTour will rely on his progress,” De Groot defined. “Thanks 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 development.”