Felt Bicycles Technology

ALLOY MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY

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 doublebutted 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.

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.

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.