I actually like the look of this a lot more now, that the top tube is aligned whith the pointy thing in the back.

You sound like a fitter or elite racer seeing your signature. So the creme of the crop in terms of making that argument. The average joe isn't going to be able to fit themselves to the same comfort/aero ratio on the tri bike as you're going to be able to. And the average joes don't all spend hours with fitters and aero testers. So I'd bias that towards those fits being less optimal. So.........if you can't be the best at it or buying the best you're better off doing the road/tri bike combo training. Again, IMO.

The base bar isn't the same as an endurance geometry road bike.

I also feel like you don't need 100% tri/tt time to adapt. I'd argue 50/50 is plenty sufficient and actually argue too much tri/tt time you might leave watts on the table due to not making more KJ's day in and day out from the slacker hip angle road position. The "More is More" argument of ftp development.

Just because I could ride the TT bike for 3 hours (it's a TT bike, not a tri bike for mine), I'll make a known value more KJ's on the road bike. Multiply that by XXX workout days a year and that's a lot of KJ's of work lost. But, you do have to adapt some to not have your loss between the two be too great.

The optimal balance isn't 100/0 nor 0/100, it's in between. I'd say it's somewhere in the ballpark of the %'s being within 20% of each bike.

I guess my point was that while I acknowledge some folks are less well off in general in life, people could down-prioritize owning a $40k car and spend a minor fraction of that on a nice bike.

Or could spend $50 for clip-ons. While a tri bike is superior to clip ons, they are still a highly affordable and effective piece of kit. Likely faster properly setup versus a poorly setup tri bike.

People don’t do that because they hate riding aerobars due to not ever riding in them. You see folks on $5k tri bikes constantly on the basebar.

A road bike is more comfy.

Sure, “new versus new” a road bike is cheaper. But if folks are that picky to enter a sport I don’t pity them that they won’t humble themselves to not buy new.

Same way I don’t pity folks who lament “having to pay Lowes or an electrician” to hang a ceiling fan and how it’s expensive to own a home. Yeah, if you don’t bother to learn or think how to save money and still play the game.

Regardless of what direction Felt will go under the new ownership and regardless of the pricing the more I look at this bike the more I’m getting to like it.
It seems, for me at least, that this is one of those designs that need to grow on you. Same as I had with the P5X when I saw it the first time.
The one thing I noticed however, at least it looks like that on the pics, they still use that same aerobar mounting system as on the IA 1.0 with the carbon base bar with no tilt option standard available. If that is the case that would be a major flaw at these price levels. But I might be wrong….

The design however is growing more and more on me :-)

Jeroen

I thought did occur to me regarding the $17K Etap version. What if it includes that new Classified Powershift hub? That would both be cool and make the price more palatable. Probably not, but that would certainly be different.

If we're talking about "most people" and marginal gains, then the answer will always be "most people" should save their money and train more and train harder.

Interesting. Maybe she got something custom made for her.

Disagree. I'm a 48 year-old hack. I'll buy any damn bike just because I want to. You can opine on how I'm "optimizing my resources" all you want. :)

I'm sorry, there's a world outside the US? ;-) Pre-Covid, Felt was still a strong player here in multi-sport, but much of it's thunder had been stolen by Canyon. I think the sale to Rossignol really hurt them as much of their talent left the company, some right across the street to Cervelo who moved in within a stones throw. Up until that point, Felt always had the feeling of a family business (because it essentially was).

Felt had historically owned the entry-level to mid-priced consumer by always offering one bike that was an amazing deal...no one could match or beat it. I think the IA 10 was the last time you could say they were in that position. I still love that bike. Here in the US, very few people ever purchased their highest price-point bikes. It was 105 mechanical and Ultegra Di2. They mixed and matched parts to get that price down, but the entry level multi-sport athletes weren't concerned with what cranks, brakes, chain, or cassettes were on the bikes. The wheels were entry-level as well and weighed a ton. Again, that first time buyer didn't care about such things. Then Canyon came along and not only took that market out from under them when they were finally available here in the US (they had largely abandoned it anyway), but also made it unacceptable to downgrade parts to keep the price down.

Now I feel like no one is catering to the entry-level athlete. The barrier to entry is just too high these days, and I believe it's hurting the sport. I'll be really interested to see where we're at next year and the year after when people stop racing on deferrals. If there's a downturn, I think a lot of it will have to do with the price of the sport. Someone needs to bring back that entry-level bike. Someone needs to offer up the old Nytro Multisport "let's get you into triathlon package" where you get a bike and a wetsuit for a ridiculously low price.

I'll also sound of a warning to Canyon, whose prices have steadily risen well above the inflation rate. Yes, the market dictates pricing, and they've found people are willing to pay more, but I'm beginning to see that tide change. There's little price difference between a Canyon and some other brands and people are taking notice. I believe far more of our clients would prefer a Cervelo P-Series to a Speedmax CF now that the prices are largely the same. Right now, they'll take whatever they can get, but that bubble will soon burst, and I believe Canyon may find they've over-reached a bit.

Back to The Camel, this bike was completed the moment Felt brought out the IA Disc. That's how long it's been around ready to be brought to market. A few years ago, it would've been unique. Now, it's just another bike that looks odd sort of for the sake of looking odd. There is nothing special about the bike, and certainly nothing I see to convince the consumer to pay those prices. This thread is proof of that. There's literally no real talk of the bike itself. Few questions being asked. Almost no excitement.