I remember the first time I saw one of Jim Felt’s bikes. It was in 1996 at the Olympic Road Qualifiers in Seattle. I watched a feisty young Chris Horner (complete with pony tail blowing in the wind) take Frankie Andreu (and another rider, who for the life of me cannot remember) in a 3 man sprint that was stacked against him. While the Tour DuPont win is what went on Chris’ resume as the “big win” for the season, that win in Seattle was an exciting one. And seeing a young rider who really had little to no exposure do it on an equally unknown bike was just as exciting for those of us who like to keep track of the toys as much as their pilots.
My roommate back then (and the best mechanic I’ll ever know) had one of those cardboard wrapped, disposable cameras. He literally extended his arm through the crowd and by nothing more than an accident, snapped this shot of Chris’ Felt being propelled to victory. In a pre-internet era, we had nothing but rumors to go on; “What the heck bike was that? And where do we see one?”
14 years later, and I’m still talking about that Felt and dribbling with excitement to see them here in Tacoma. Of course Chris has changed teams as many times as he’s changed his clothes since those days and today Felt’s are being propelled by no less talent under the athletes of the Garmin squad. My favorite rider on a Felt today? Has to be Dave Zabriskie – for a handful of reasons, as many related to the bike as not.
Beyond the nostalgic memories, Felt bikes fill an important space at Tacoma Bike. For road racing, their bikes sit among the round table of the very best. At our highest end offerings, the Felt is something to be ridden, tested and compared to others to arrive at your own conclusion. Look at their aero road designs. Aero road is a big part of the future of traditional road frame design. It’s a blend of road geometry with aero shaped tubes that takes cues from the slick skin of a TT bike. Belgium is taking note and some of their most revered brands are participating in this thinking as well. It’s fast. Ride one.
For TT and triathlon related efforts – Felt fills a very important segment. At the $2,000 – $4,000 range, their bikes are unbeatable in performance and value. As this is where over 80% of the market shops, we think you will be more than pleased with what we have to offer.
Felt Composites Overview
Today’s professional peloton is made up almost entirely of bikes built of carbon fiber. In the Grand Tours that statistic is 100%. The rare sighting of anything else is just that; rare. Composite technology has come a long way in the last 20+ years. We saw some early pioneers in the late 80’s reveal complete composite bikes that weighed a ton and had sketchy durability. Then we saw “safer” approaches by using sourced composite tubes, much the same as we see an alloy tube used in traditional designs, and they were “lugged” with super-glues into all manners of aluminum, steel, titanium and composites. By the later 90’s the trend was to build hybrid design frames that would be part alloy and part carbon. The more popular trends of the day were alloy main triangles with perhaps a composite seat stay (which were great) or a completely composite rear triangle.
Today’s composite bikes are a grand departure from those early experiments. The layers of today’s carbon, process for assembly and overall engineering are more advanced than ever.
As is common now, Felt bikes reserve carbon fiber for their most premium ponies. In this process, Felt employs 3 incredibly advanced formulas:
- Ultra-Hybrid Carbon Fiber with Nano Technology
A proprietary blend of SB60, M30S and T700 carbon fibers….carefully sculpted into the highest strength-to-weight ratio Felt has to offer. This is the formula the team riders get.
- Ultra-High Modulus Carbon Fiber
This is a blend based on the M30S fiber and is 27% stiffer and 20% lighter than the standard High Modulus Carbon Fiber, while retaining almost identical strength properties.
- High Modulus Carbon Fiber
Formed of a blend of T700 fiber, this fiber is the base composite to be compared against its alloy rivals. Essentially, at Felt’s “introductory” level of carbon frames, the T700 fiber used has a tensile strength 7.9 times greater than 3/2.5 titanium and stiffness 3.34 times greater than 6061 aluminum.
