Felt AR3

Felt's AR3 is one of the new breed of road bikes that combines a light weight with genuinely impressive aerodynamics to create a fast, sparkling ride.

Remember back in ye olden days? Back when all this was still fields? You had lightweight bikes, and you had aerodynamic bikes, but you didn’t have lightweight aerodynamic bikes. Felt combined the two in 2008 with the introduction of the AR range.

Fine, aerodynamics aren’t of supreme importance when you’re sheltered in the middle of a 100-strong peloton (although, even then, every little helps), but we’re guessing that you don’t ride in a huge bunch every time you go out on the road. The AR3 gives competitive riders the option of time trialling sections of a road race, and everyone else the chance to ride that little bit quicker.

There are five bikes in the lineup, kicking off with the £2,500 Shimano Ultegra-equipped AR4 and going right through to the £6,500 AR1s – there’s a Team Issue model with Mavic Cosmic Carbone Ultimate wheels and a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset, and a Di2 version with Shimano’s electronic shifting and Dura-Ace wheels. (Felt haven’t produced a Special Edition in the AR range, although we’d pay good money for one if they did, just for the decals on the top tube). Our AR3 shares the geometry of the top-of-the-range models although it’s made merely from high-end carbon rather than the super high-end material you get if you pay more.

We like Felt as a brand. We like the way the California-based company do things. To us, they’ve got their priorities right. You get some bike manufacturers who push research and development, investing a lot in the innovation of technology, design and manufacture. And then there are other brands that wait for the others to do the work and then – how can we put this? – they’re ‘inspired’ by it. Actually, let’s call a spade a spade: they copy it.

Felt are firmly in the first category. They spend a lot of time in the wind tunnel in San Diego, for example, to fine-tune the aerodynamics of their designs, and that’s not cheap. But it pays off in designs like the AR.

Frame and forks

The frame is an ultra-high modulus carbon fibre monocoque with a high ratio of fibres to resin, giving thin tube walls and a light weight without sacrificing frame strength or rigidity.

The airfoil-profiled down tube is deep – it varies but it’s never less than 65mm – and shadows the line of the front wheel, while the seat tube moulds around the leading edge of the rear wheel to smooth the airflow there. The top tube has a shield-shaped profile – it’s flat-topped with curved sides and tapers considerably as it slopes gently down to the seat tube junction – and the seat stays are slim, not to say skinny, in contrast to the meaty chainstays.

The head tube is certainly on the short side at 162mm (well, 161.6mm, according to Felt’s official stats, but what’s 0.4mm between friends?) to give a low and aggressive ride position, and the bladed seatpost, which is ultra high modulus carbon fibre too, extends the aerodynamic theme northwards.

Felt’s 1.2A forks are as you'd expect carbon fibre too, including the steerer tube and dropouts – ultra high modulus with bladed legs – while the gear cables and rear brake cable are neatly routed internally, out of the wind.

Components

The groupset components are top-line SRAM Red so you get Double Tap shifting – a short push to go down the block, a longer push to go up – with a 53/39T chainset and SRAM dual-pivot brake callipers.

The wheels are Felt’s Aero R2s which come with 28mm deep aluminium rims, sealed bearing hubs, and aero bladed spokes, while the tyres are Vittoria Rubino Pros. The bars, stem and saddle are the only other in-house components and they’re all decent if unspectacular alternatives to big-name options.

Our 56cm model weighed in at 7.58kg (16.7lb, without pedals) – pretty light. You can get lighter, of course, but you’re taking a slight hit for the extra material used for the aerodynamic features. In theory, the time you gain here should easily outweigh any time loss caused by a little extra weight.

The ride

The AR3 is quick. It rolls along fast. It’s not exactly scientific, but we’ve done our fastest solo long rides of the year on this bike, and our fastest solo short rides too. Okay, it could be coincidence – we’re talking about seconds in an hour, maybe a minute – but we just seem to ride with a bit more speed when we’re on board the Felt than on a standard, non-aero road bike.

It bowls along flat sections, munching away at the miles with a real enthusiasm. Slap the AR3 into the big ring, get down on the drops and you’re away. The low ride position provided by the short front end clearly helps here; your upper body is flat enough to keep drag to a minimum although those who struggle with back flexibility might be in trouble. It is, after all, a full-on race geometry, as used by the Garmin-Transitions pro team, not a bike built for sight-seeing.

That said, it’s a smooth enough ride even over Britain’s worst, frost-damaged roads and we were happy enough perched on Felt’s narrow-nosed 1.2 saddle. The first ride we did on the AR3 was a monster 150-miler, and we came home feeling fine. Well, you know, relatively; as fine as you can do after riding that far.

Accelerations are sharp with the AR3 keen to wind up the speed whether you’re starting from stationary or already rolling. We’ve known stiffer bikes when it comes to all-out sprinting – we had a small amount of torsional flex when we really fired up the quads and gave it everything, but not much. Power-transfer is still direct enough and the steering is accurate when you’re carving through the tight bends.

The Felt is equally impressive when you hit the hills. It climbs really well. A bike a pound or two lighter might shade it out in a dash for the summit but it’s still a lively climber. Ask for a little extra speed halfway up a tough slope to drop your ride-mates or race rivals and it’ll happily respond. And if you want to improve the AR3’s climbing prowess further in the future by lightening the weight, there’s scope to do that by upgrading the cromo-railed saddle, swapping the alu bars for a carbon option and, if you’re really flush, going for some truly lightweight wheels.

In terms of bangs per buck value the AR3 is probably the pick of the AR range, yes £3000 is a lot of money, but you are getting a lot of top end kit on a very up to minute piece of frame technology.

Verdict

Super-aero speed machine that comes in at a decent weight; a smooth ride too