THE FELT FR40 ROAD BIKE RIVIEW

• ·        THE FR40, 51Cm bike is available for test ride at Escapades – for the road and beyond (PONDA-GOA). If interested drop a message on 9823905756

FELT bikes were officially launched in India by Ozone ventures, on 27^th March 2017. Soon after, I got to lay my hands on FR40 - the Aluminum framed, Tiagra equipped Road bike. I tested the bike on Rolling Goan Terrain, with some challenging up hills and some bad roads. The bike performed superbly. The FR40 belongs to FELT’s FR series bikes that come in 17 variants, including Carbon and Aluminum frames. The FR30 (Shimano 105), FR40 (Shimano Tiagra), FR50 (Shimano Sora) and FR60 (Shimano Claris) are Aluminum frame variants.

THE FEATURES THAT STAND OUT ON FELT FR SERIES ALUMINUM VARIANTS

FRAME MATERIAL

The FR series Aluminum bikes use 6069 alloy, the most popular alloy being 6061. The 6069 has higher tensile strength than the 6061

THE 6069 ALLOY FRAME

VARIABLE ANGLE ADJUSTABLE STEM (VA STEM)

A nice feature that, allows the rider to adjust the stem angle. This stem has 6 angle settings -16, -12, -8, +8, +12, or +16 degrees

THE VARIABLE ANGLE STEM

RIMS

The rims are tubeless ready

WHEELS

When the current trend is of lesser number of spokes on road bike wheels, FELT has stuck to 32 (rear) and 28 (front) spoke wheels on FR series bikes and that’s a good decision. The wheels are Sturdy, Stiff and Light weight.

CABLING

Internal

INTERNAL CABLING

FINISH

No weld marks seen. The paint job is top notch

TOP NOTCH FINISH, NO WELD MARKS SEEN

DRIVETRAIN

Full Tiagra 2x10 speed, this is the latest version of the Tiagra with all shifter and brake cables running under the bar tape

BOTTOM BRACKET BEARING

Pressfit 386 for high stiffness

THE RIDE EXPERIENCE

I have clocked 430 Kms on FR40 and…… the least I can say is, the more I pushed the bike the more it demanded. Very responsive bike – the right combination of frame engineering, the 386 pressfit bearings and stiff light weight wheels add up to make a bike that accelerates well and climbs even better.

THE FR40

ON THE CLIMBS – the bike is kitted with 50/34 and 11-28 Tiagra drive train, initially I had my doubts whether the 11-28 cassette would take the steep climbs on the mountains that surround my home town or will I have to change the cassette to 11-30 or 11-32. But, after clocking 430 Kms and choosing to ride the most difficult climbs in the v

icinity the 11-28 cassette stays. The bike climbs WELL!! Let me explain this in layman terms, to climb one needs lower gears, for me (on my two other road bikes) on the three steepest climbs on my ride routes, the gear combination would be 34 front-30 rear or 34 front-32 rear, But on FR40 I could go up in 34-26 on two of the climbs and 34-28 on the toughest one. Simply said, the bike is built well for efficiency. I will repeat here, the Frame Engineering, the stiff wheel set and stiff BB386 Bottom bracket bearings makes this bike a great speed and climbing machine.

ON ROUGH ROADS – the FR40 is a stiff race bike, I could feel the roughness of the road on the bad dug up stretches. But, remembering a Hindi proverb “Kuch Panay ke liye Kuch Khona padta hai”  which roughly means “To gain something, you lose Something” but, what you lose in this case counts to zero when you realize what you are gaining and that is – a bike which you can ride the whole day and not feel fatigued, a bike that yields easily to your pedaling efforts

ON THE FLAT ROADS – speed, accelerate, speed, feel the wind on your face….feel the adrenalin rush…..accelerate…speed…….wow!!!!!

PRICING – the FR40 is priced at a little above 1Lac, the bike is worth every rupee.

Final Verdict – A great bike at a great price…….GO FOR IT !!!! YOU WONT REGRET ……..