Why do we care so much about handlebars? Why not derailleurs, or forks, or cranksets? Because a handlebar is not simply a component on the bike. It's an indicator of how the bike is set up. It tells a story of bike position, and the decision to use (let us say) a drop bar—aka road race bar—instead of a pursuit bar means, or ought to mean, that you'll use a different frame geometry than if you chose to mount your aero bars onto a pursuit bar.

That's why we survey aero bars instead of seat posts or stems or tires. Sometimes it seems like we're wasting our time, because many in our sport just frankly don't get the significance of this. They don't understand the fundamentals, or at least our explanation, or take, or theory, of the fundamentals of bike position and how it relates to base bar choice. I write this because what I see in the transition areas of many races tells me that a lot of wrong thinking has been applied when choosing how to build up many of these bikes.

Yet we survey handlebars anyway, and we'll continue to report on them. We're surveying just the pro bikes in this segment, and we'll follow that up with a look at the age-grouper's handlebar choices.

We're looking at two parameters that we considered last year and in years past: which manufacturers had their handlebars represented and in what numbers; and whether the athletes chose pursuit bars or drop bars as their "base bar." We're also looking at a new parameter which we only began to look at last year: One-piece bars versus the more prevalent clip-ons mounted onto base bars. One-piece bars represent a return to the original idea behind aero bars. The very first bars, made by Scott USA, were one-piece tubular aluminum bars bent like a pretzel. Its design was more or less copied, and somewhat improved upon, by Profile Design and a couple of other companies. Only after all this was the idea of the clip-on developed.

But today's one-piece bars bear no resemblance to the old originals. They're sleek and aero, they're made to accept a more appropriate brake lever (or they have their own levers integrated into the bars) and they're lightweight. They have better hand positions. They're more comfortable and ergonomic. Some have stems integrated and some do not. We're treating them all as one-piece if the base bar and clip-ons are all integrated into one unit.

Exactly 60% of the pros used pursuit bars on their bikes. This corresponded to 66% last year. By "pros" we're considering bib numbers up through number 170. Certain pros are not included in this number, and certain non-pros are included. Last year we also considered the upper echelon of pros, which were numbered one through fifty. In their case pursuit bar use jumped eleven points, to 77%, that is, the better the pro the more likely he or she would use a pursuit bar set-up. It appeared to us that the first 59 entrants, numerically, were this year's analogous sub-group (Chris McCormack was number 59). Pursuit bar use jumped only from 60% to 62% in this group. We also noted that all ten of last year's top ten bib numbers were riding pursuit bars. This year we found two in the top fifteen who were riding drop bars, Christoph Mauch and, interestingly (if our surveyor got this right) Thomas Hellriegel. Last year we had him riding a pursuit bar.

This year 51% of the pros were riding Profile Design. Syntace has 30% of its bars on the pros' bikes, and Cinelli and TTT follow with 6% each. VisionTech has a half-dozen of its bars represented among the pros, and this paltry amount is certainly due to a lack of interest in sponsoring the pro triathletes. If you were to look at the time trial bikes used by the best pro bike racers in the grand tours, you'd see quite a few of these bars VisionTechs. This company doesn't sell enough bars to triathletes, and I don't know why.

One might cynically suggest that Profile Design's overwhelming coverage in the pro field is simply due to money, that it just out-sponsors Syntace. This view would be based on the fact that when we publish our next article, which is the handlebar count amont age-groupers, that Syntace will somewhat turn the tables. It must be noted, however, that there is another factor contributing to this phenomenon. Syntace—to its credit—is historically more likely to have been the "original equipment" bar on most tri-specific bikes ridden in Kona, and as such Syntace will have a head start. Pro triathletes are not going to simply accept the OE bar, however. They're going to change out the handlebar to fit their tastes and, of course, to fatten their wallets if there's a bonus schedule or some such incentive to be had.

Therefore, it would be interesting to attempt to survey what Profile Design's sales are compared to Syntace's in the aftermarket, and how these two companies' original equipment sales compare. Maybe we'll get around to that.