Aero product design has come a long way in the last few years, but back in the 1990s Cinelli developed the now iconic Spinaci clip-on aero extensions, designed to provide the aero position of a time trial bike for a road bike. They had their fans, but not the UCI, as they were swiftly banned from competition for safety reasons. You can learn a bit more about the Spinaci bars here.
And now they’re back. Sort of. These new Zirbelaci clip-on aero handlebars from Swiss company Zirbel Bike are designed to be an enhanced Spinaci, but essentially they follow the same design as the originals. The key feature are the two curved extensions that clip on to the centre section of the handlebar and provide a position where you can rest your forearms on the handlebars and grip hold of the extensions.
According to the Swiss company that has developed them, the motive behind their development was from seeing lots of people using the position in the photo below, with arms draped over the centre of the handlebars as you often see professional racers doing. They also say they offer the advantage of providing enough space to hold onto the top of the handlebars compared to other aero extension bars on the market at the moment.
Zirbel Bike’s Stefan Koller tells road.cc that there are good reasons to use this style of handlebar extension. “I like the Spinaci style extensions, there are good reasons to use them, but the Spinaci leads always to a very controversial discussion,” he says. He admits he’s not sure how much market there is for the handlebars, so he has produced a short run of the handlebars. They cost £170 with one twist grip shifter or £230 with two twist shifters.
The Zirbelaci bars are made from aluminium and compatible with 31.8mm handlebars, and they’re also compatible with Shimano’s Di2 electronic groupset, with two twist grip shifters to operate the gears, which can be used instead of Shimano’s own climbing shifting.
You’re certainly not going to be seeing these in the pro peloton, but where we think they might actually have a use in this day and age is for adventure and gravel bikes. You only need to look at some of the bikes of long distance cyclists like Mike Hall to see that stubby clip-on aero extensions are popular, for providing an alternative position and one that is aero, useful when riding long miles solo.
What do you think? Is there a place for these handlebar extensions on your bike?
More at www.zirbel.ch/en/
10 thoughts on “Zirbelaci reinvents the Spinaci clip-on aero handlebar”
I’m pretty sure I saw
I’m pretty sure I saw original Spinaci’s (or close copies) going for under a tenner on some of the main seller’s sites fairly recently(?)
edit G-ed it http://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/HB3TTIRA/3ttt-tiramisu-bar-extensions – is it just that the clamps won’t fit modern bars?
JohnnyRemo wrote:
Original spinachi clamps *should* fit modern bars as they clamped to the standard section not the bulge – O/S bars are the same diameter as non O/S, its just the centre bulge that got bigger. I’m not sure where the Tiramisu bars clamped. Spinachis were tricky to fit round under-tape cable when it was just brake cabling, let alone gear and brake, but I used them a lot for hilly TTs, and they seemed to work very well.
I was going to say the same
I was going to say the same thing.
I have some just like that sitting around in a box at home. Pretty sure they were some generic brand and very cheap when I bought them. Never got round to using them.
I think mine came with some additional forearm pads that you could attach to the handlebars, rather than resting forearm pads directly on the bars themselves.
Like the idea of the Spinacis
Like the idea of the Spinacis. Shame this reinvention isn’t more elegant looking. What’s that red crap plastic crap. Christ.
unconstituted wrote:
Rather than spending your time seemingly commenting on every single road.cc article, perhaps you could use your time to try reading one? ;0)
STATO wrote:
Oh you’re confused. I wasn’t commenting on the function. I was commenting on the state of the design. Honestly, look at the state of it. Looks like cheap eBay tat.
Bitchy snipes always welcome though!
£30 and no shifters and I’m
£30 and no shifters and I’m in.
As article says for the
As article says for the Adventure/Gravel market these would seem a useful alternative to the short extensions currently used. Not sure for that market there is a requirement for shifter integration at that price.
As a triathlete, I’m a big
As a triathlete, I’m a big fan of aero bars. Particularly short ones, on a road bike. There are a couple of odd things about this design though… The design failed commercially once before, for a reason? Riders can already achieved the position without the bars, resting forearms on the bar tops. Why add more equipment? Even with arm pads, short clip ons make for sore ulnas (ulnae?) quite quickly. I used to use my D-lock as an aero bar when commuting. That was much more uncomfortable on the forearms.
Old Spinaci bar clamps are
Old Spinaci bar clamps are brilliant for freeing up bar space on a commuter drop bar bike. I put a straight length of MTB bar in mine, everything went on it, bell, light etc.