Felt Decree – A new 140mm travel trail bike
For some time now, Felt has employed their rather complex ‘Equilink’ suspension system on all of their longer travel and trail oriented models (from 130mm and up). Their lightweight XC bike, the Edict, was the only exception; it used a far more simplistic system.
With only 100mm of travel, the Edict uses a single main pivot and an upper rocker to activate the shock. There’s no rear pivot and the small amount of movement between the seat and chainstay is managed by the carbon rear end—Felt calls it their ‘FAST’ technology.
Now Felt has used the same single pivot flex-stay format on their just-released trail bike—the Decree. This platform offers 140mm of rear travel which is combined with a 150mm fork on most models. That’s more travel than they had on their multi-link Virtue models (they are a 130/140mm setup).
With the simplistic design comes lighter weight; where the range topping Virtue FRD frame is said to weigh 2,520g, the longer travel Decree equivalent is supposed to come in at 2,380g (both claimed weights offered by Felt). In in theory there should be less maintenance too with the FAST design.
Felt will offer the Decree in a range of models in both alloy and carbon (all will have a carbon rear end however). Australian pricing will start around the $4,319 mark for the Deore 2X10 equipped alloy frame Decree 30. From there the full carbon Decree 3 will go for around $5,430 (with Shimano XT 2X10) while the Decree 2 will be the top model for the Australian market; it runs a new Shimano XT 2X11 group with a piggyback equipped Monarch Plus rear shock (approx. $6,579). Both the Decree 2 and 3 will come with a 150mm travel RockShox Pike fork.
Claimed complete bike weights for these models are as follows:
Decree 30 – 13.22kg
Decree 3 – 12.66kg
Decree 2 – 12.4kg
While many trail bikes are getting very long up front with the aim of fitting super short stems, the Decree maintains relatively conservative trail bike geometry. The reach figures are not excessive (compared to the seat tube dimensions) and the Decree has a ‘not too slack’ 67-degree head angle. The chainstays are suitably short however at 430mm across all frame sizes.
With its introduction, the 27.5 wheeled Decree will replace the Virtue for the Australian market, sitting neatly in between the XC racing Edict 29er and the 160mm travel Equilink suspended Compulsion. Expect them to be available Down Under by December or early in the new year.
