VOLUME ISSUE AUGUST , P95
hilly course with approximately 3000
feet of elevation gain—that's a lot for
a triathlon, and TT bikes aren't great
climbers, nor am I. Not an ideal com-
bo, but the Felt and I, it turned out, got
through it well. My goal was to finish
the bike portion in under eight hours—
mission accomplished with only one
minute and 22 seconds to spare. I'm
sure the speedy Felt made up that dif
-
ference alone.
The Felt and I got to know each
other quite well during the race and
our many hours of training together.
Several things stood out about the
bike. The Felt's electronic shifting is
a godsend. It changes gears superbly
and effortlessly, and the shifting but
-
tons are positioned perfectly on the
aero bars and on the drops, where you
can operate the shifter buttons with
just the palms of your hands. You use
zero effort to change gears. The setup
encourages you to shift so you're
always in the ideal gear, and that is a
huge advantage for speed and for sav
-
ing energy in endurance races.
Also, I'll never go back to dual front
chain rings again after riding the Felt's
single sprocket setup. You never get
lost with your gearing or worry about
cross-chaining, and there are fewer
mechanics involved (things to break)
and a reduced chance of the chain de
-
railing. Less stress. I still felt like I had
plenty of gears on the Felt, and when-
ever I did feel a little in-between gears,
it was never a big deal or lasted very
long. The advantages far outweighed
the disadvantages for me.
I had a love-hate relationship with
the disc brakes. I liked that they were
so strong and didn't require much
effort (there's that word again, but in
triathlon, reducing effort is a never-
ending battle) to operate, but I didn't
like how grabby they were. They
scared the crap out of me at times.
Tri bikes are not known for
being comfortable, but after
eight straight hours on the
Felt IA 2.0, I came off the
bike relatively pain-free.
