VIRTUE - Felt Bicycles

FELT ALLOY THEORY
❚ With the ability to be cold-worked, butted, and formed into complex
shapes, aluminum alloys have proven themselves, time and time
again, to possess excellent characteristics for lightweight bicycle
frame construction.
❚ Custom tubing shapes, when expertly designed can offer far more
than just great looks. Ride quality is, of course, one of the most
important features to build into the design of a performance bicycle.
Internal and external butting, in addition to reducing weight, distributes
stress away from the weld zones, while custom tapering, flaring, and
bi-ovalizing tubes can substantially increase stiffness in areas where it
is most needed. These properties combined can enhance handling,
comfort and acceleration.
❚ At Felt, we use the most advanced types of forming technologies,
including state-of-the-art Hydroforming. Using high pressure liquid to
form tubing from the inside out, hydroforming allows for unusual
and complex external shapes while being able to utilizing premium
double-butted tubing internally. This results in lightweight yet remarkably
strong tubing, without requiring gusseting or reinforcement.
Additionally, we can directionally-tune the tubing to offer a set of
desired ride characteristics.
❚ Whether using this latest technology or traditional methods, at Felt
every tube diameter, wall thickness, butting and shapes are fine-tuned
to bring together a balance of high performance, superlight weight
and comfort.
SUPERLITE TUBING
❚ Our Superlite 7005 and 6061 aluminum frame tubes utilize secondary
butting to save additional weight and further tune the ride. Additionally,
our Superlite frames feature forged and CNC machined head tubes,
BB shells and dropouts to further eliminate unwanted weight. When
combined with carbon seat stays, we can build a frame that can
enhance comfort and minimizing rider fatigue while still retaining the
lively and responsive feel of aluminum.
❚ 08
Jamie Whitmore racing the RXC Team.
KINESIUM TUBING
❚ This material sets an even higher standard in strength for 7000 series alloys. Kinesium is a proprietary alloy that offers higher fatigue resistance,
translating into thinner-wall tubes building a lighter frame without sacrificing strength and stiffness.
F-LITE TUBING
❚ F-Lite‘ is Felt’s answer to the absolute best in affordable high-performance tubing. 7005 is an aluminum alloy that uses a zinc base to
enhance its strength. This allows us to reduce the wall thickness of the tubes considerably. All of our 7005 frame tubes are custom-shaped
and butted to Felt specifications, which maximize strength, minimize weight and deliver optimal ride quality.
09 ❚