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Felt Teases New VR Endurance Road & Ultralight FR Race Bikes

2024 Felt FR road bike prototype shown from angle
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While they won’t hit stores until early 2024, Felt Bicycles sent over a few sneak peeks of their revised racing and endurance road bikes.

The FR is their all-arounder race bike, made for climbing, descending, and hammering at the highest level – think stage racer versus crits. The VR is the everyday bike for most riders, blending performance with long-distance comfort. For 2024, both bikes get better at their respective games when they launch in February.

2024 Felt FR

2024 Felt FR road bike prototype shown from side

The Felt FR maintains its racy character but introduces more aerodynamic efforts to help you save a few watts. The mostly-internal routing starts with the handlebar with cables popping out near the stem, where they run into a channel underneath it, then through the headset and into the frame.

closeup details of 2024 Felt FR road bike prototype

This lets Felt keep the bar and stem separate to make it easier to install and service…and swap bar and stem sizes to customize the fit and swap in any personal favorites…for the bar, at least. Any aftermarket stem will have to work with the routing through the headset.

2024 Felt FR road bike prototype shown from angle

Overall, the bike has sharper, straighter lines and corners than before.

closeup details of 2024 Felt FR road bike prototype

Later in 2024, they have an ultralight, sub-700g version coming, too. While they won’t say anything more than that it uses a “special layup”, Felt was one of the first brands to fully embrace TeXtreme fibers and create some very light yet strong frames with it, so it’ll be interesting to see what they have up their tight, aero jersey sleeves.

2024 Felt VR

2024 Felt VR endurance road bike shown from an angle

I’ve ridden the VR over the years, and it’s an excellent bike. For 2024, it follows trends by increasing tire clearance to 700×38, allowing it to head into “fast gravel” territory without giving up anything that’s made it a great all-road endurance bike.

2024 Felt VR endurance road bike shown from an side

They add a new vibration-damping system at the seatpost collar to smooth rough roads. Based on the slim seatpost shown with a thicker than necessary seat tube, we’re guessing there’s an elastomer sleeve in there (or similar).

closeup of cockpit on 2024 Felt VR endurance road bike

Up front, it gets the same aero two-piece bar & stem combo as the FR, too. It looks like the top tube bag mounts go away, which is a bummer, but maybe these are pre-production models without all of the bells and whistles shown.

2024 Felt VR endurance road bike shown from an angle

The seatstays meet the seat tube lower than before, which should help in overall compliance, working well with the seatpost systems and larger tires to make it a fast and comfortable bike.

FeltBicycles.com

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Larry Falk
Larry Falk
1 year ago

I will buy a new endurance bike in the next year or so and will consider the VR if the vibration-damping system isn’t something that will creak, weigh a lot, or be something that replacement parts are not available after a few years. I’m not hopeful my conditions will be met and I wish frame makers would design endurance bikes without the gimmicks. (The new Argon 18 Krypton is what I like most right now.)

dirtgoblin
dirtgoblin
1 year ago
Reply to  Larry Falk

which damping systems creak

myke
myke
1 year ago
Reply to  dirtgoblin

dirts finds all gaps and thus you are guaranteed a creak at some point. as well as another failure point. YMMV.

Whyarebikesoverpriced
Whyarebikesoverpriced
1 year ago

Felt who? Should like someone woke up from their long nap.. They had some of the best Cross and Aero road bike, but then they just disappeared. Good to see they are coming up with new models. But instead of teasing, they should be playing catch up.

Last edited 1 year ago by Whyarebikesoverpriced
Oliver
Oliver
1 year ago

They launched their new carbon gravel bike 14 months ago. It was supposed to be available late summer / early fall LAST YEAR. There is still no sign of it. Felt dealers say it won’t come this year. So don’t hold your breath on this new thing they’re showing.

Jaap
Jaap
1 year ago

I’d love a paintjob like that.

Technician
Technician
1 year ago

Festka called and they want their designs back.

Fake Namerton
Fake Namerton
1 year ago

Man Felt is one of those brands that has really gone into the abyss. I never see them out on the road no matter where I travel. I had a F75 a while back and aside from the dodgy BB it was an absolute hoot to ride handled like a Suzuki SV650 which is the pinnacle of compliments.

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