Felt Introduces a Lighter & Faster Breed Gravel Bike

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So much has modified at Felt inside the previous few years. Most notably, the model is underneath new possession. For practically three years, Cesar Rojo and Florian Burguet have been working the corporate. A handful of months in the past, the 2 took full possession of Felt and now run it as an unbiased operation.

No extra outdoors affect, no extra massive company guardian corporations.

As one in every of their first strikes getting into 2026, they’re releasing the newest era of the Breed gravel bike. Felt saved the aggressive, race DNA that impressed the earlier Breed, however does so at a lighter weight.

Felt’s Focus

For the newest Breed, Felt centered on three guiding ideas: aerodynamics, weight, and match. The earlier era had already seen a number of podiums and top-10 finishes. Whereas it will be a tough platform to enhance on, Felt acknowledged areas of change for potential positive aspects.

Aero

With this newest era of the Breed, Felt delivered a ten.5% discount in aerodynamic drag in comparison with the previous bike. They completed this by way of three elements working collectively.

A brand new aero-optimized body. Felt reworked tube shapes to optimize airflow, creating cleaner transitions and straighter sections to scale back turbulence general.

A redesigned fork that manages airflow round wider tires extra effectively.

A carbon one-piece cockpit considerably lowers the frontal space, streamlining airflow over and round the forefront to scale back drag at its supply.

Together with new tube shapes, Felt lowered the body stack and dropped the positioning of the seatstays. Decreasing the stack retains the Breed’s geometry oriented towards street effectivity, whereas dropping the stays improves airflow in the back of the bike.

Weight

Felt states that every one the aero enhancements don’t imply a lot if the bike appears like a slug. However, once more, they had been capable of make spectacular enhancements over the earlier era of Breed.

The brand new Breed body weighs simply 950g, with the whole construct coming in at 7.037kg (15.5lbs). This can be a 22.8% weight discount from the earlier Breed.

Once more, Felt credit a number of elements for the burden loss. They used Finite Ingredient Evaluation to help their carbon layup course of. The evaluation confirmed high- and low-stress areas on the body, permitting them to strengthen the high-stress areas.

Conversely, Felt was capable of slim down the fabric wanted in areas that didn’t want it. The evaluation additionally allowed them to reshape and enhance the tube diameter the place wanted. This reshaping and small tweaks to the geometry resulted in a stiffer body that may normally be achieved by including materials.

Relying on the construct, Felt makes use of two completely different carbon layup processes.

Felt’s new built-in carbon cockpit additionally shaved an excellent portion of weight. In contrast with a standard aluminum stem and bar, the built-in cockpit weighs about 30% much less.

Match

Felt maintains a constant attain and stack throughout all six sizes of the brand new Breed. They declare that doing so delivers a race-optimized rider place that helps environment friendly energy switch and a steady, aerodynamic posture.

This philosophy is clear on Felt’s gravel and street bikes, making the brand new Breed really feel acquainted to somebody coming over from the street.

With race-readiness and aerodynamics on the forefront, the remainder of the Breed’s geo is tailored for the calls for of gravel using. Each a slacker head tube and longer wheelbase present stability over quick, technical terrain. The chainstays fall within the Goldilocks zone: lengthy sufficient to supply stability however quick sufficient to not compromise dealing with.

Felt offered room for broad tires, with clearance for 54mm tires up entrance and 52mm within the rear. There may be additionally quite a lot of body configurations, with area for 4 bottle cages and mounting factors that don’t compromise body stiffness.

The brand new Breed can also be appropriate with a suspension fork and a dropper submit.