US junior time trial and street 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 last yr as a junior, Barry will transition in 2026 to Visma’s growth crew, which competes on the Continental stage, or bounce to the highest tier.
“That is the primary time we’ve got signed somebody so younger straight for our WorldTeam,” Robbert de Groot, head of growth at Workforce Visma-Lease a Bike, mentioned in a crew press launch.
“We see immense expertise in Ashlin, together with important room for progress. We’re due to this fact more than happy that he might be a part of our crew within the coming years. It displays our confidence in Ashlin’s potential and underscores our perception in long-term collaborations. Solely by working carefully with a expertise from a younger age can we fulfill their most potential.”
This previous season Barry moved to EF Training-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 street 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 Monitor 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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“Workforce Visma-Lease a Bike is actually a dream crew. It’s extremely inspiring to signal with the identical crew as riders like Wout van Aert and Jonas Vingegaard. They’re nice examples of how one can develop additional inside this crew,” Barry said within the crew’s press launch.
“In fact, I’m nonetheless very younger and within the strategy of discovering my specialties. I imagine the classics and time trials would possibly go well with me finest, however I’m assured that this crew is the proper 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 did not deal with biking till he was a teen. He spoke to Cyclingnews within the spring about his pursuits in a number of disciplines in biking as he regarded a future profession within the sport, calling it ‘distant’ on the time.
“I positively need to race professionally. It’s arduous to know what I can accomplish because it appears very distant. I’d like to mix racing on the street and monitor,” he informed Cyclingnews, admitting his street focus for spring 2025 was a victory on the junior Paris-Roubaix race.
“The Olympics in 2028 are a giant purpose for me to look in direction of, however there are a variety of targets I’ve earlier than that. Racing with EF Training-ONTO because the begin of final yr has been a very nice expertise for me. I’ve realized lots and had superb assist.”
Rusty Miller has been the crew director of EF Training-ONTO for over a decade and gauges success not a lot in victories however in nurturing younger adults with racing talents and life abilities. He mentioned Barry was forward of the curve in each.
“We’re proud to see Ashlin’s ascent to the World Tour stage. He is an unimaginable rider and a fantastic human being,” Miller informed Cyclingnews. “We are going to all get pleasure from watching his progress within the upcoming years as we proceed to deliver alongside the subsequent crop of North American skills already inside our program.”
The “growth pyramid” offered 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 Workforce and when he’ll step as much as the WorldTour will rely upon his progress,” De Groot defined. “Due to our growth pyramid, which features a junior, growth, and WorldTeam, we will stay versatile and supply riders like Ashlin a tailor-made pathway to additional their progress.”
