Felt IA 10

The IA, short for 'Integrated Aero,' has been the flagship tri bike for California-based Felt Bicycles for several years. In 2015, the company announced a lower-priced version of the bike that swapped out the integrated cockpit and brake components for standard parts, while keeping the rest of the bike's aero pedigree intact. In fact, Felt admitted that the new chassis is even faster than the one on the original. So we were keen to build up one of the new IA frames with our own Alpha X aerobar and Omega X brakes, to see what the result would be. So that's exactly what we did. Here is our IA 10, built up in TriRig style.

Per our recent interest in 1x drivetrains, this bike was built with SRAM Rival 1x, with a 46t XSYNC chain up front and an 11-36t cluster in back. The result is a highly versatile, simple machine that is as fast as it is beautiful.

This is a lovely bike, and deserving of an in-depth look from front to back. So let's take a look at exactly what this beast is, starting at the cockpit.