Up front, new dropouts raised the fork crown and increased the rake, compensating for the decrease in head tube angle to keep trail consistent. They designed new dropouts that moved the rear wheel back and up (relative to the old position) which dropped the rear end of the bike and increased the wheelbase of the bike. And of course, the modified the fork and the rear triangle to create clearance for those bigger tires.Īgain, the amazing thing here is that they managed all these changes without cutting new molds for bikes that will essentially be raced once a year. Felt’s engineers also managed to drop the bikes’ BB height by 3mm even after the addition of 28mm tires. They also have a 10mm longer front center and 13mm longer chain stays to keep the weight distribution virtually unchanged. The F1 seen above features head and seat tube angles a full degree slacker than the stock bikes. Seems like an impossible trick, huh? Let’s cover the changes to the geometry and the rationale for it and then we’ll get into just how they did it. In fact, the changes are deeper in the DNA of the machine.įelt’s engineering team changed the geometry of the F1-giving it handling and tire clearance perfect for the cobbles-without cutting new molds. Unchanged is the bike’s layup and stiffness, which many might guess would be the first concession made to the cobbles.
How these frames differ from a standard F1 might surprise you. For this year’s Paris-Roubaix, the Argos-Shimano team rode on a special run of the company’s F1 frames.
Second, they feature geometries that include high bottom brackets (for pedal clearance) when the average Roubaix rider wants a lower BB to make the bike easier to handle over the bumps.įelt has taken a novel approach to meeting the needs of their sponsored riders. First, they’ve been chosen because the standard race bikes from the teams’ sponsors have allowed clearance for 28mm tires in some cases they won’t even allow 25mm tires. The cyclocross bikes have been a less than stellar option for a few reasons. The efforts to tame the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix have included everything from running lower tire pressure in 28mm tires to wrapping the handlebar with foam pipe insulation and even using cyclocross bikes.
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