FRONT TRIANGLE - Since the Virtue was designed to be incredibly fast and absolutely race-worthy, being lightweight was a top priority. One of the many beauties of the Equilink system is its inherent compact size and minimal weight. Since the key suspension members (links) are contained just behind the seat tube, there’s no need to use primitive, heavy-duty tubing to house pivots on the main tubes. You will not see any interrupted tubing, monstrous gusseting, or over-designed monocoque applications. What you will see is a sophisticated yet bullet-proof 7000 series aluminum front triangle. The top tube utilizes the latest in hydroform technology, allowing us to manipulate and strengthen tubing without adding unnecessary weight. A Felt proprietary Superlight doublebutted downtube is met by an internally and externally-relieved hourglass head tube up top, and at the bottom by a two-piece, welded BB/lower pivot clevis, which has been machined from the inside out, shedding significant weight. The Virtue front triangle sets the standard by achieving the ideal balance of lightweight refinement and long-term durability.

REAR TRIANGLE - When our engineers needed to select the ideal material for the rear end, carbon fiber was the perfect and obvious choice. Since carbon naturally dampens vibration, there was no better place to use it than on the section taking the brunt of the impact and abuse. On a typical bicycle frame, the seatstays and chainstays usually have the heaviest wall thickness of any frame tubes. Because of this fact, we were able to specify a carbon fiber thickness which provided all the off-road durability needed, while meeting our weight and flexibility requirements simultaneously. With its inherent spring-like quality, the material even allowed us to eliminate a pivot at the rear dropout. Carbon fiber was ideal for the Virtue suspension design since it could be laid up in the mold precisely how we wanted, to provide bump-absorbing vertical compliance while maintaining lateral stiffness for efficient power transfer.

SHOCKS - All Virtue models were designed to accept any brand of shock, around conventional shock lengths, without requiring specific internal factory settings. The Equilink suspension system was designed to offer the utmost in efficiency without requiring platformvalved shocks to mask design deficiencies (suspension-induced bobbing). However, we do recognize that platform valving can be used to smooth out unwanted rider-induced shock movement such as choppy or inconsistent pedaling stroke. At Felt, we believe that shock specification and tune-ability should be a choice - not a requirement. ll LINKS & PIVOTS - The Virtue features cold-forged links for strength and are CNC-machined for lightweight refinement. Identical and commonly-available sealed cartridge bearings are specified at all pivots, contributing to the simplicity of the Equilink system.