Road Cycling - Felt frames

Have any of you had first hand experience with Felt frames/bikes? I've been looking at Felt in my quest for a new bike, and they seem to provide good value for the money... especially the F65:

http://www.feltracing.com/F65.html

Shimano 105 all around, front carbon fork, pretty light bike with what seems to be a lot of bang for the buck.

It is, however, hard to find reviews/customer experiences about Felt on the net. I plan on test riding the F65 tomorrow.

Thanks.

I test rode the F50 and really liked it. I think you get an awful lot of bang for your buck with Felt. The only reason I didn't end up buying the Felt was that I really don't care for integrated headsets. I weigh about 260 and was afraid that I would end up ovalizing it. For the money I don't think you can beat Felt. The dealer here in Florida had the F50 for $1350 with full Ultegra. I think the F65 was about $1000.

In that price range, check out the Specialized Allez Elite-same components with the carbon fork and a carbon seatpost. A host of other brands have good bikes at that price point as well though the Specialized stands out as we've been selling a lot of them and getting great reviews from our customers.

I just bought a F65. I love it. It is my first road bike and I did my research before buying. There is not another bike out there with FULL 105 (that includes triple crank) for $999. The Allez are more and come with a Coda crank. Buy it. The customer service so far is great too.

I sell Felts and so far we have had a lot of good feedback about their bikes, especially the F65. The cool thing about felt is that their marketing philosophy is completely based around putting their bikes out at rock bottom prices with better componentry. Specialized is mostly a marketing company that contracts almost everything they make out to other manufacturers. I think their entry and mid level framesets are being made for them by kinesis or some other company right now.

I love my felt.Those other bikes,check to see if they have 105 cassette and crank where they get cheap sometimes.Felt also uses pretty got aluminum frames,7005.

I love my felt to. I picked up the F75 last month, unbelievable value!

It doesn't seem that a felt frame would be very strong.









:D

What is it that would make them weak?

i love my felt (35R), i just got it abt two and a half months ago, and i have probally just under 1k miles on it already. from what i know, the majority of the onwers of felt's are tri-athelets b/c i am asked alot if i am (which i am not, b/c i hate running) b/c i am riding a felt
you are right there is really nothing on the net about felt's but they are out there and i love it

Originally posted by CycleNaut
It doesn't seem that a felt frame would be very strong.



Quartzel® fiber is produced from quartz crystal that is ground, purified, fiberized by a fusion process. It is homogeneous, non-porous, continuous, amorphous, ultra pure silica glass. It is available in the form of yarn, roving, chopped strands, wool, and felts.

Tensile Strength:
6000 Series Aluminum Alloy 240 MPa
Quartzel Fibre 6000 MPa

:confused:
Tensile strength: 6000 series aluminum alloy 240 MPa Quartzel fibre 6000 MPa

What does all this mean?? What about series 7005 aluminum?

Numbers mean{i think** what is mixed in with the materal.Better grades.7005 is suppose to be pretty good.

haha, hes telling us thats quartzel felt is WAY WAY stronger then 6000 series al. or at least quartzel fibre is and it can be woven [??] into a felt.

:lol: :lol: I get it!! A felt frame!!!
I must admit I was a little worried for a second.

Thanks for the feedback!
I picked up a Felt F65 on Tuesday after test-riding quite a few bikes, and love it so far. I paid 1k at a LBS and got free fitting and free service for a year. It's firm, quick and light. My body is starting to hurt after my first couple of days riding, as I had not ridden in a long time.

During my research I learned that going the online route for what seems to be a good deal is seldom a good idea, especially since LBS's are not fans of people buying bikes online and taking them to them in pieces looking for a good deal on assembly/fitting... but that's another topic. :)

Thanks for the tips.

Are you saying that because you buy your bike someplace else,the lbs doesnt want your business?

No, they will of course take your business.

However, you are much less likely to get deals on various services if you don't buy from them, and especially if you walk in and go "i got this bike from supergo for $200 less than you guys sell it for. pls assemble it and fit it for me, and give me your great advice. thanks." :) The absolute worst thing you can do is go the LBS and try out a bunch of bikes, get their expert advice, then go and buy online, and go back to them for assembly/fitting.

But that's just me; I may be wrong.

shrimpx, you're exactly right. Furthermore, a customer should not expect a shop to give them service above and beyond the norm if they mail order a bike. There are still important relationships that should be kept solid, especially when it comes to bikes. The LBS typically doesn't have the cash flow to meet online bike prices, but you end up paying for every adjustment possible. If you buy a bike from a shop, they'll work on it for nothing for a long time (at least they will do minor stuff for free). Most of the shops I have dealt with will do lifetime adjustments for nothing, including minor wheel trues.

I crack up when people buy a bike online and ***** because their LBS charged them a C note to build it. What do you expect? You're asking for a service, they're doing it for their regular rate.

If i got one online i wouldnt ask them to put it together.I would hope i could do that.Is it ok to buy a bike from one dealer and get it serviced at another.

Sure, shokhead, my point is just that too many people expect dealers to hook them up when the dealer has no reason to. I've not heard of any dealers refusing to work on a bike because it was purchased somewhere else. The situations I'm talking about are when customers expect a shop to hook them up when they don't buy anything there. Pretty rare to find such a shop.

As for building a bike, there's not much to it by the time you get it, but many companies have deals with their dealers that say that the bike will be assembled by a dealer and only a dealer. IN other words, some of them won't ship directly to you. That trend has started to change with the likes of Airborne that sells direct through the web. At any rate, a decently trained monkey could put an off the shelf bike together out of the box. But, a good bike builder is rare. There are a ton of little things that a good builder will do that a trained monkey wouldn't.

And then you have those crazy bastards that build a bike up from the frame. Much more fun, if you ask me.

My friend is going to do just that.

after being out of biking for more than a decade i bought a felt bike from a local shop two weeks ago

put a couple hundred miles on it and i am very pleased

i had never heard of the brand until i saw it at a new store in town

i had test rode quite a few of the major brands

the felt rode just as well and seemed to be a better value

I test rode the same Felt you're considering. Wasn't a good fit for me. Ended up with the Specialized Allez Elite. Yep, it has a Specialized crank and brakes, but 105 elsewhere. I'm happy with it.