Felt launches 2013 mountain bike range

Image 1 of 39

Whereas most shorter-travel Equilink bikes get a carbon fiber flex-stay rear end, the longer-travel Compulsion sticks with a conventional pivot to accommodate the extra movement. The rear brake caliper is mounted to the chain stay, safely tucking it away from impact.(Image credit: Jonny Irick)

This article originally published on BikeRadar

The new Nine carbon frame follows in the footsteps of Felt's road-going F series with more smoothly flowing lines, straighter tube and fiber paths, fewer radical kinks and flat surfaces that previously served as unintended flex points, and the same InsideOut internal and external molding process that yields more precise internal shapes and less wasted material. It's a quieter design visually for sure but if our experience on the current F-series is any indicator, what it loses in flair it should gain enormously in performance on the trail.

One key element to the carbon Nine's new design is the seat cluster, which trades the previous version's wishbone-style seat stays to a new twin stay setup with a more bulbous joint. According to Felt research and development director Jeff Soucek, the new design effectively allows the seat tube to 'float' in the seat cluster for more comfort while the more organic lines – plus a vertical rib running inside the aft section of the top tube – lend far more full-frame torsional stiffness than before for better handling and an overall snappier feel.

Felt will also bring the new Nine up to date with the ancillary features, which now include a tapered head tube, fully lined and guided internal routing for the front and rear derailleurs, hollow tubular-style carbon fiber dropouts (with replaceable hangers for standard or Shimano's new Direct Mount fitment), a slimmed-down 27.2mm seatpost diameter to further soften the ride, and new InForce woven carbon fiber 'shields' built into the down tube, top tube, and chain stays to provide impact resistance without the need for thick and heavy plastic guards.

The bottom bracket area is thoroughly puffed up from before and, in fact, it's big enough to easily accommodate a BB30 shell. However, Felt has decided to stick with a conventionally threaded aluminum two-piece overlapping insert for more precise bearing alignment, better crank compatibility (not to mention the option of BB-mounted XC-style chain guides), and reduced creaking. Aluminum is also used in the bearing seats for the integrated headset and the IS-style rear brake caliper mounts.

Geometry has been updated with 100mm-travel forks, chain stays that have shortened by 5mm courtesy of a subtly kinked seat tube, head tube angles slackened half a degree to 71° (while retaining the same trail thanks to new fork offsets), and shorter head tube lengths as little as 90mm in the smallest sizes to retain aggressive cockpit positioning. Speaking of which, the size range grows by two with the total spread now running from 14 inches all the way up to 22 inches.

Despite the continued use of aluminum, claimed frame weight for the new Nine FRD flagship is a paltry 900g for a medium size – 150g than last year's LTD – thanks to a new partnership with Swedish Formula 1 carbon fiber supplier oXeon. According to Soucek, oXeon's TeXtreme fabric uses woven fiber plies that are thinner than the norm by as much as half, thus allowing less material for the same stiffness or – as Felt has chosen to do – a greater number of plies in select areas to more finely hone the ride quality and boost stiffness while still maintaining thin and lively tube walls plus the inherent impact resistance of a woven cloth.

Retail pricing on the Nine FRD is quite high at US$2,850 for the bare frame. However, the clever thing about Felt's new frame design is that the benefits are inherent to the new shape instead of exotic materials or ultra-expensive construction techniques. Therefore, Soucek claims the stiffness and ride quality gains trickle down to the more reasonable price points, too. According to Felt, the mid-range Nine carbon variant weighs only 100g more than the FRD but is roughly half the cost at US$1,499 while the entry-level version is still just 1,120g for the frame and costs only US$2,700 for a complete bike built with a SRAM X7/X9 2x10 drivetrain.

Alloy Nine frames are completely redesigned for 2013 in a similar fashion to the carbon chassis, with smoother and more puffed-up shapes plus more flowing lines that supposedly distribute stresses across a larger area than before for improved stiffness and ride quality. The new frames – used on complete bikes down to US$1,000 – also get tapered head tubes, bridgeless twin seat stays, and a two-piece forged chain stay yoke that provides extra tire clearance.

Suspension travel comes courtesy of Felt's long-running Equilink six-pivot linkage system, which is somewhat similar to a standard short dual link setup with the exception of an additional CNC-machined aluminum strut that ties the upper and lower links together to help tune the anti-squat characteristics. The top-end frame will get titanium hardware across the board to supplement the mix of full-complement bearings and DU bushings.