Introducing the P17 Handlebar!
It's here. We have a product ready to sell.
The journey has been difficult. The costs are higher than expected. We probably need to sell 100 of these to recover the costs. But, we also created a thing that we think is needed because it solves problems for riders with few alternatives. We also created a thing with a few novel design features that we think might make a huge difference to the right set of riders.
Now that we are here, I wanted to take the time to explain why we made this product and where we succeeded and where we didn't.
Motives for the P17
The Mission
AProto Bike was founded to make products that make your bike just a bit better.
It's a simple idea. Make the products the big companies won't. Work hard to succeed as a small business to help those who aren't average, who don't want average.
The Values
Better is also relative, it means that we are looking for improvements that we know come at the cost of a tradeoff. In engineering, nothing is free, so we are also making different tradeoffs and are honest about them.
We also believe in inclusivity in cycling, but our product isn't for everyone; we don't have the budget for that. Our product is designed to help small riders get the aero fit they need and should have on gravel bikes that are increasingly sizing them out of comfortable, fast fits.
For riders who need to get lower on the road and might have smaller hands, we thought about you too. We know it's not perfect for that use, but where it didn't hurt the original intent of better, we made changes.
The Vision
In 2021, I finished the Unbound 200 on the first attempt. The day started well and then I broke my saddle. I experienced being passed by a large portion of the field in the last 80 miles as I gritted my teeth until the finish line.
I had aerobars on that bike and, despite training on them, finding myself constantly surrounded by other riders, I ended up using them for less than 10% of the event.
Shortly after that, I designed and commissioned a road bike I designed myself, which led to a wealth of experiences culminating in begging a company to make the bar that became the Bikedoc HB24 in 2023/2024. That track-derived bar was alright on the road, and the narrow aero position it enabled was eye-openingly fast. It was also punishingly stiff and I found it too narrow on singletrack. That got me thinking, what would it take to make a great gravel bar? Would a better bar have helped me as I suffered through those 200 miles of Kansas gravel?
The Result
Dimensions
I started with a clean-sheet design for the drops. I had a couple of intentions here. The first was to increase control. I love the Enve SES Aero bar from a decade ago. It was and still is the benchmark bar for comfort. For off-road use, we asked ourselves what we would do to make it work just a bit better.
The first answer is that I raised the lower portion of the drop by about 5mm to improve control. Second, I didn't want the hand position to be narrower. The bar includes a subtle in-sweep of the lower part of the drop to ensure that, though it's 40cm outer to outer, the bar retains that measurement all the way to the lower front portion of the drop that you would hold onto when descending.
I also love the flare of that Enve bar and its lack of insweep, and so this bar too has flare, even more of it, and no insweep prior to meeting at the tops.
Reflecting on the desire for a more aero position, particularly for smaller riders, the tops of the bars are dropped and then cut flat. This results in:
- A shallow center-to-center drop of 105mm, which we found just roomy enough to be used for sprints, with the wide flare providing just enough wrist clearance
- A dropped top aero position that is 17mm, or in a lot of cases, replicates the stack of a bike 1 size smaller
- Flat tops that are designed to help you maximize contact area with the bar for more stability in the aero hoods position without shaping that locks you in or constrains your movement
The result is the following shape:
In summary this bar is:
- ~31mm c-c at the tops and 32mm c-c at the clamping area of the hoods, flaring out to 376mm C-C where your hands rest in the drops
- 100mm of reach (c-c from the clamping area) and are 105mm deep. This gives you the length to sustainably hold an aero hoods position, while moving the drops up 5-10mm for increased control
- Tops are up to 60mm deep and feature an aero-shaped top profile with a flat top for comfort. The bars sweep back to enable as ergonomic a grip as possible on the tops, given the deep profile
- Ramps are also shaped to be flat and dropped by 17mm to provide a lower effective stack height for gravel racing
Safety
This is born to be a gravel bar. That meant that not only did we look for the most challenging test standard we could find (TBIS), we also tested it to the higher of either MTB or Racing bike requirements. This means that this bar survived higher impact and fatigue than the ISO requirements.
The table below illustrates how much more extensive the fatigue testing for this bar was vs. a road bar only tested to meet ISO 4210 standards.
| Test | Force Applied | Cycles |
| ISO Road Bar | ||
| Out-of-Phase Loading | 280N | 100,000 |
| In-Phase Loading | 400N | 100,000 |
| AProto Bike P17 | ||
| Out-of-Phase Loading | 280N then 330N | 100,000 then 100,000 more |
| In-Phase Loading | 450N then 500N | 100,000 then 100,000 more |
Aero
I am not going to make aero claims about this bar. For the most part, it's designed to help riders get more aero by focusing on the "80%" that accounts for most of the drag.
That is why the bar has 100mm of reach and a flat, deep top section to help hold the aero position longer.
Just being honest, we also didn't have the budget for wind tunnel testing.
That doesn't mean we didn't try to make the bar aero. The profiles are intended to be airfoil-like, with a larger-radius leading edge and a smaller-radius trailing edge. Knowing that we needed a cross structure in front of the clamping area, we also decided to use it as an interface for the computer mount, which fills the space between the computer and the stem and directs air around the round section of the stem clamping area.
Computer Mount
The computer mount takes on a lot of the features of our computer mount product, including the "hidden" mount interface for GoPro and accessories, and the ability for the insert to be replaced if broken, while retaining the ability to be used with Garmin, Wahoo, and Magene bike computers via a 90-degree rotation. Like the other computer mount product, it's also designed to let the interface area drain, preserving barometer / altimeter function on some computers.
Gravel Bike
On the gravel bike, I feel like it works as intended. On long rides, it feels aero-efficient, and on singletrack, that traditional width for the drops provides the right balance of control. I think it's a helpful aid for riders that want more of a road aero position as it solved the stack problem for me, and it the long reach, wide tops make for a stable platform, particularly when paired with these SRAM E1 levers.
From the bike's profile view, I think it looks pretty normal, and it doesn't detract from otherwise classic-looking gravel bike.
One strange observation is that while doing aero testing on the road, my CDA relaxed on the tops is not that different than my CDA when in the drops. It's a very personal result, but one thing to note is that the wide drops hand position may offer less advantage for the drops than most other bars.
Road Bike
For the road bike user who has enough stack or wants to go lower, this bar can work, but for a lot of folks, it might verge on too low.
For me, this isnt the case as going lower and longer with the 20mm of additional reach results in a lower CDA than I had on this same bike using the Bikedoc Hb24 bars. At the same time, even though I am lower, the larger contact area between me and the bar makes holding that aero position easier than ever.
Bonus Feature: Zeno Coupler Compatibility
These bars are actually compatible with the Zeno couplers sold on this site. The style with pins pressed in fit into the bars where there is plenty of room to store the slack
The Warts
I promised honesty. This bar is far from perfect.
First, it doesn't work with Enve InRoute stems and may not work with other carbon-fiber internal-routing stems. The reason? I chose for aesthetic reasons not to extend the channel all the way across the bar, and because I didn't have an InRoute stem on hand during the design phase, I missed it.
Second, to meet the testing requirements we laid out, which were far above the norm, we had to make the lever-side routing holes smaller and reinforce them. This was due to the fatigue testing schedule. This makes routing really hard to do and requires a routing tool. To help home mechanics get this done, we have pre-routed the bars with short pieces of hose and are including a SRAM / Rockshox barb tool to allow you to join the hydraulic hose of your choice to it and just push it through.
Third, it’s not easy to wrap. We recommend using a stretchy tape like Zipp Service Course CX or Silca’s Nastro Cuscino to get the tape around that 90 degree bend. We think its a worthwhile tradeoff to get more support in the aero-hoods positions and we hope you agree.
Fourth, internal bar quality. If you stick a scope inside these bars, it looks more like the bikes from a few years ago, before EPS became the norm. A huge part of this is due to the shape. We have squared off lines, 90-degree angles, and those narrow radius curves all over this bar. We are working with our supplier to make this better in future runs. While you can't see it, we know it's there, and it's one of the reasons why we are offering a discount on orders in this first run. It's worth noting that this was discussed with the engineering team, and with the bar samples still passing the extensive testing protocol, it is not a safety concern.
Closing Remarks
That was a lot of words, but it's covered our thoughts after spending 2 years thinking about iterating and finally getting this product made.
It's been one heck of a journey, and while it's not quite over, we are looking forward to selling these and hearing the good, bad, and ugly from customers as they try out our best attempt at making handlebars just a bit better for their use.