Felt Surplus

Felt Surplus Review

Initial impressions? Well, it is certainly not the most elegant looking bike in the world with its clean geometry overwhelmed by its color and trekked up wheels. That says it is a bike for rough fun outdoors. Yeah, we were right.

You noticed that we referred to the tyres earlier as being trekked up. What they also are is enormous. And that is because, as the name suggests and the looks confirm, the Felt Surplus is actually the first plus tyre mountain bike to be released from Felt. It uses an aluminum frame that is a clean and simple. It iss form following function and to truly grasp the elegance of it, you have to stare at it intensely and blur out the rest of the Surplus. They have also managed to keep the weight down under 14 kilograms.

Once you have mounted it, the Felt Surplus is absolute fun on wheels giving you an immediate sense that it is desperately playful and we reckon you would be all too happy comply with it. Although, beforehand you have to find the sweet spot for pressure on the tyres and that is easier said than done. When it comes to climbing we were worried the Felt would be disadvantaged by the fatter tyres but it wasn’t. It climbed our muddy and rocky trail beautifully, even in the wet.

But then came the descent and this time we were worried that Felt’s playful attitude would backfire on it. It did not. Thanks to the 65mm bottom bracket, the rider assumes a low down position on the bike giving more control and accurate feedback. And that translates to absolute confidence on the descent.

All things considered, the Felt Surplus really a toy you can buy for around 1000 pounds.

The Verdict

We can’t remember having this much fun in plus-tyre model in a while. The Felt Surplus is one heck of riot.