They’ve finally released it - Site
A few comments
It looks like an intelligently designed and specced bike, there are lots of small details that appeal. Producing the fork in two different rakes to improve the handling of the little bikes (and alleviate overlap), having 2 offsets of the aero post from the start, 165mm cranks on the smallest size, putting sensible fast wheels on stock (under their own name to keep the cost down).
The frame will fit, in terms of position co-ordinates, quite similarly to the Soloist. THe sizes 54 and above are fairly well interchangeable apart from the 61 where the felt is ~10mm longer.
I’ve calculated the Stack and Reach for the AR and have shown it with the SLC geometry for purposes of comparison.
http://i37.tinypic.com/20udbgg.jpg
One thing you will notice is that the Felt has longer chainstays and consequently a longer wheelbase. If I were to make a critiscism of the SLC for the average buyer (since most who buy them are not racers) it would be that the short chainstays push the weight distribution rearwards and thus you need to have a position with a long stem and stretched body in order to get the best out of the handling (note that the bike is suited to its target market - but the average consumer is not a racer). So the AR will have a WD% more like that of a traditional road racing frame, but with the aero benefits that Cervelo first brought to market effectively.
The AR is also much taller than the F-Carbon series and thus gives Felt an offering in between the longe and low F’s and short/tall Z’s.
If I were to find something to pick at with the AR it would be the size 51. In order to respect the 575mm minimum front-center convention for reducing toe overlap they’ve made a frame that is only slightly differentiated from the 54 above it. If you fit the same stem and put 21mm more spacers on the 51 then the 51 is only 6mm shorter reach than the 54. Rather than being a smaller bike it is probably more apt to view it as a 54-low, so for a rider needing the bars lower than they can conveniently be positioned on the 54 it is quite appropriate to choose a 51 (assuming the steeper STA is not an issue, but the 38mm offset post should aid that). It would seem that Felt don’t pay quite as much attention to stack and reach as Cervelo since the sizes don’t progress as smoothly but this doesn’t particularly matter, in fact it may make more sense to concentrate your sizes in the region that the majority of riders will fit so that you present the clued up rider/fitter with several possibilities.
Overall I’m very impressed, though that will change if someone gets hold of one and proves that it requires more power to drive than an SLC (it will have to be a blind test). It’s a bike targetted at the same group of consumers as the SLC but with slightly different handling characteristics that should appeal to the kind of rider who favours Colnagos and other “classic” geometry bikes. The fact that there are a range of colourways and specs doesn’t hurt either.
It’s certainly exciting to have a second valid option in the Aero Road stakes (before someone mentions the Ridley Noah - their own testing showed it to be no different to a standard road bike so it doesn’t count). Healthy competition between two engineering focussed brands can only be good for the quality of product available to the consumer.
