The New Jersey Devilman Half Lite 50 triathlon was held on Sunday, May 3 in Cedarville, New Jersey. This is an event I’ve done a few times because from a distance and timing standpoint, it is opportunistically situated. Timed at the beginning of May, it is great for Mid-Atlantic area triathletes who are interested in doing the Ironman 70.3 Eagleman event in mid-June. And from a distance standpoint, the 50-mile length is a good early season shakeout preparing you for longer things to come later in the year. Race organizers Piranha Sports do a nice job with this event, with its .8 mi swim, 40.3 mile bike and 8.8 mile run, though the shift this year away from a USAT sanctioned race is a bit disconcerting.

Dave Moses from Dave’s Road Bikes asked me and I agreed to race test Felt’s new Superbike, the IA triathlon and time-trialing specialty bike. This bike has gained a LOT of notoriety in the past year for its aerodynamics and high quality of fabrication, and I was eager to give it a ride under race conditions. Its gotten a fair amount of press for being the bike selected by Australian Mirinda Carfrae for her 2014 Ironman World Championship win at Kona, and quite a few elites and pro’s are singing its praises as the newly crowned “fastest bike in the world” for time trialing and triathlon.

He supplied me with the IA 4, which is the most economical model in the IA line, but with the same aerodynamics of the  $14,000 flagship IA FRD.  The IA 4 lists at $5,500, which is not to be taken lightly, but as compared to its peers, is comparable and, I think, a very fair price for what you get here. The IA 4 is equipped with Ultegra derailleurs and drivetrain and Vision Tri-Max crankset, chainwheel and bottom bracket. Everything else is Felt proprietary. You will lay out some dollars to own the IA 4, but you will be racing one of the fastest bikes in the transition area (see below), for far fewer dollars than many will have spent on lesser bikes.

I received the bike the week before the race and Dave had it perfectly prepared. Building the IA, with its integrated headset/aerobars is a bit of an art, and Dave had this one set up beautifully. Dave had my particular riding specs from the fitting he had done on modifications to my Kuota tri-bike and we dialed in the fitting of the Felt in his video equipped studio. With some additional tweaking to fit my specs, it felt very comfortable and ready to race.

A bit more about the IA…Felt consciously aimed this bike at the Cervelo P5, the previously reigning aerodynamic champion, but with a twist. Being the engineering geek, I can appreciate the tradeoffs in design that have to take place for yaw angles that Tour riders can post vs. those for good age groupers. In a nutshell, the P5 is set up to be the champion of very low yaw angles, and the Felt engineers placed their emphasis on higher angles of attack, for a broader range of riders and diverse conditions. (Keep in mind, yaw essentially represents how much a crosswind feels like a headwind. For a Tour rider with time trial speed near 30 mph, a 10 mph direct crosswind feels more like a headwind, the low yaw angle scenario. For us mere mortals, the cross wind component is still felt. This is the higher yaw angle scenario) Felt designed this bike to be good at low yaw angles, but the champion at higher angles. It did this by using very large tube shapes with a frontal profile that is somewhat higher in drag, but begins to generate lift at higher yaw angles to offset the drag under ride conditions most often encountered.

The bike has an exceedingly comfortably build for age group triathletes: it is truly dedicated to tri; it’s got the idealized mid-range geometry distance triathletes (Particularly older age-groupers!) need: not terribly low, and not terribly long. Seat angle is set a 78 degrees on a 56cm frame, with top tube length, as well as stack and reach that is slightly taller and shorter than the bike it’s predecessors in the Felt triathlon/time trialing bike lineup. I felt immediately comfortable on it. I will freely admit that my winter and spring training has been dominated by marathon preparation and I had ridden outdoors very little. Nonetheless, I raced the 40 miles of this event comfortably at 21 mph without overly sacrificing the run, and felt no issues in the shoulders and lower back typically associated with early season aerobar sessions. I stayed in aero at least 95% of the time…this is a VERY comfortable bike. I got off feeling completely ready to run!

Dave provided the bike, and I wanted to test it, with its stock wheelset. This is a very nice set of 35mm-depth training wheels, better than most of what you see supplied with high end triathlon bikes. This bike would have easily given me 22 mph with a set of 808’s on the front and rear, and would undoubtedly have responded even better to an 808 on the front with a disc on the rear. I don’t think you can race this thing in good conscience with the training wheels on it….it would be like driving a Porsche with snow tires all summer.  So plan to spend the dollars for aero wheels.

The bike handles and rides better than I expected. Most high end bikes that I get on at first feel a little twitchy and it generally takes me several hundred miles to start feeling comfortable. The IA felt great from the first couple of miles. It cornered very admirably while staying in aero. I’d love to try it on hills….it had the feel of a bike that would climb and descend beautifully, letting the more average cyclist stay in aero longer. The frame felt very smooth, rigid yet forgiving. Road bumps felt satisfying in that the bike stayed stable with minimal rattling and creaking that is heard in some aggressive carbon frames/forks, without being overly jarring.

All in all, I rate the Felt IA 4 very highly and would put it on a short list of the absolute best triathlon bikes. You’re getting a bike that is very fast, rides comfortably, is set up for long triathlon races and handles very well. It is built with a lot of thought, and with its quality components and construction, will serve well for many seasons.

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