Felt Breed Carbon Advanced review 

The Felt Breed Carbon is a race-oriented gravel bike from the Californian brand that represents a substantial redesign from its alloy predecessors: the Breed 20 and 30. Despite maintaining a very similar geometry, you could say that this new bike is a breed apart. The frame’s aero-optimised look aims to maximise speed on the flats, but comes with a wealth of mounting options and a dearth of proprietary fitments. It carries a slight weight penalty next to slimmer carbon competitors at 8.7kg in 56cm.

This Advanced build came with a SRAM Force 1× groupset and the all-round reliability and versatility of Zipp’s 303S wheelset. It’s a top-end build but one that should make it competitive in the speed-focussed gravel space. Despite its huge tyre clearance creating capability off-road, the Breed Carbon transitions easily onto the road once fitted with some 30mm tyres, making it impressively versatile.

Felt Carbon Breed Advanced development and frameset

The Breed Carbon is Felt’s first carbon gravel bike and while the brand says it maintains some of the features and ideas learned from Felt’s aluminium Breed predecessor, visually it is vastly different, with its chunky tubes hinting at its premise to prioritise aerodynamics and stiffness over light weight and skinny tubes. However, while it may look unique in design, the Carbon Breed is meant to be versatile.

To achieve this, Felt has lengthened the chainstays and specced an asymmetric T47 bottom bracket (yep, its subsequent adoption by other brands like Cervélo and Factor mean it’s another new standard) allowing for up to 50mm 700c tyre clearance, and even more on 650b wheels. In terms of groupset options, the flexibility is certainly there too, with a neat removable panel that can house electronic, mechanical systems and 1× or 2× drivetrains.

The number of customisable elements in the Breed build indicates Felt’s intention to create a somewhat future proof bike, that will be able to accommodate the inevitable changes and demands that will enter gravel bike builds over the coming years.

Felt hasn’t shared any wind-tunnel data, but it says it has worked on optimising the aerodynamics of the Breed Carbon thanks to its extensive experience in its AR aero road bike, TT and Triathlon bikes. The extended, smooth frameset certainly looks like it would do a decent job of smoothing airflow.

Clearly the move into carbon is the most significant change for the Breed. It allows for better power transfer across the frame in its entirety, will help to absorb road fuzz in intelligent ways, and, as you can see in the sculpted joints at the head tube and seat clamp in particular, gives licence to create unique shapes where alloy does not. Carbon on a gravel bike opens its undercarriage up to potentially damaging trail debris but Felt has done its best to nullify this with some well-placed rubber shields.

The Felt Carbon, despite its fresh profile, retains predominantly similar geometry from the alloy models of the Breed, but the focus has been on accommodating a large range of different tyres and wheels, with this stretching up to 2in on 650b wheels. It is impossible to miss the inflated tube profiles that characterise the Breed Carbon including an extremely large bottom bracket area that is 77mm wide. These are included for aesthetic and aerodynamic reasons, as well as stiffness gains.

Felt Carbon Breed Advanced build

The Breed Carbon on test was fitted with the SRAM Force AXS groupset which more than doubles the outlay on a Breed Carbon versus the Shimano GRX600 option. The 40t chainring is paired with a 10-44t cassette for a large gearing range, with the extreme ends of the range invaluable for opening up fast flat tarmac, and painful technical ascents.

A focus on adding speed wherever possible feeds into the Breed’s dropper post compatibility. A clever seatpost sleeve dubbed ‘TaperLoc’ allows different seatpost widths and even works to insulate the rider from bumps transmitted up through the frame when a skinnier 27.2mm diameter post is used.

While the lack of an integrated cockpit means the front of the bike isn’t as clean as some competitors, it allows conventional bars and stems to be used that will arguably let the rider achieve more efficiency by letting them get their fit bang-on. And for those looking to morph this bike even further, Felt has foregrounded the option to switch to front suspension forks in the future, and covered by a rubber panel are the mounts for a front derailleur if you should decide to switch to a 2× groupset at any stage.

The Breed comes with a Zipp 303S wheelset that is not the lightest at 1,558g, but is a good fit for a speed-focussed build. A 45.3mm depth gives them a profile to be aware of in any crosswinds and a 22.7mm internal width is wide enough to accommodate chunky gravel tyres as well as slimming down to 28 or 30mm for days on the road. But they are hookless rims, so be sure to check your replacement tyres first.

Felt provides Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres, which have little tread and are made for the dry rather than less hospitable surfaces. The bike arrived with innertube valves that were too short to inflate with my standard track pump so make sure you have some 60mm on hand. Alternatively, tubeless valves were included for added flexibility on tyre pressure.

The inclusion or exclusion of boss mounts doesn’t discount this build as an adventure bike, but Felt’s choice to exclude any bikepacking friendly attachments on the front forks or seat stays indicates that speed is the priority. I only made use of four mounts for my bottle cages of the many, but the screws available on the top tube allow riders to add compatible top tube bags or Felt’s own bespoke luggage. The rear wheel is loosened by a built-in lever while the front wheel remains a standard thru axle needing an Allen Key.

Felt Carbon Breed Advanced geometry and sizing

Cyclist’s tech editor, Sam Challis, tested has Felt’s Breed 20 aluminium bike and among other features he was impressed with the bike’s confident handling. Felt was evidently similarly satisfied with it, for despite a distinct departure physically, the Breed Carbon is very close to the aluminium model in geometry terms.

To bump up the tyre clearance, the chainstays have been lengthened by 10mm and the head tube is 20mm shorter to create a lower, more aggressive fit that’ll help with speed, but otherwise the Breed Carbon continues with a long wheelbase for stability, but matching that with a decent fork rake to make sure the trail doesn’t get too long and make the bike sluggish through turns.

And it’s worth mentioning that in the smallest two size options you sacrifice one of the bottle mounts on the down tube.

Riding the Felt Carbon Breed Advanced

There was a lot to be encouraged by when riding the Felt Breed Carbon, whether on road or fine gravel. On tightly packed gravel and broken surfaces it was grippy and responsive, with accelerations picking up beautifully through the cranks and the carbon. It was while exerting full torque that the uniform stiffness really made itself, well, felt, and so I found the Breed was most at home, and giving me the most enjoyment, while powering along reasonable surfaces on the flat.

I was also impressed with the cornering and the Felt’s nimbleness when jinking round obstacles. The lengthy wheelbase didn’t seem to impact this ability to respond to steering flicks, and the consequent impacts from my erratic direction changes were nicely soaked up by the dampening TaperLoc seatpost and the accommodating tyres. The seatpost doesn’t just dampen – it also visibly flexes with a small amount of force exerted.

The Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres were, as expected, in their element on the more parched surfaces that I encountered, but I would envisage adding another option for riding deeper into a British autumn. Felt has taken pains to underline the speed capacity of the Breed Carbon, so I would envisage most customers being sanguine about a tyre that will produce high speeds where they are an option, ie, away from the ugliest trails.

The Zipp 303S wheels are all-rounders that switch between road and gravel impressively. When I switched to 30mm slick tyres and onto the relative uniformity of the road, it was great to feel the Breed Carbon respond enthusiastically to accelerations and push past 50kmh before the cassette topped out. The perfect test for the aerodynamics was on all-out tucked-in descents, and I found myself easily approaching the high 60kmh mark on long, arrow-straight roads.

The fundamental speed of the frameset was confirmed as I easily kept pace with bona fide road bikes. Equally, the 1× drivetrain stretches to a gloriously low gear that allows the legs to spin even into the 20% plus gradients. There is certainly an argument to this being a one bike catch-all option.

While broadly the design is a triumph, I did find some details amiss in use. Felt doesn’t appear to have skimped on any element of the bike so it was disappointing that the bike arrived with inner tube valves that were too short to inflate with my standard track pump. What’s more the TaperLoc seatpost system was not the easiest to operate, and required a considerable amount of setup time before I was able to achieve the height desired. However, but once it’s ready, it’s ready, and since it stays in place this was a one-off time investment.

Tightening bolts on the handlebars meant a mixture of regular Hex bolts and Torx bolts, which felt like an unnecessary complication for adjustments on the fly with a compact multitool, but I loved the 3M reflective base under the bar tape which really came into its own in the dawn and twilight zones, the submerged reflective layer catching car beams and street lights and adding a vital flash of visibility.

Felt Carbon Breed Advanced verdict

In making the Breed Carbon, Felt is improving on and adding to its own brand of gravel bikes that is well thought of in the alloy category. There are clear advantages to the carbon build, in both weight, stiffness, aerodynamic capability, and – to some – aesthetics. Felt have taken the geometry and embraced the various benefits permitted by carbon. It’s wise not to change something too much if the ride quality is there, and based on my experience on the Breed Carbon, the positives have been held onto.

You also have the choice of the Breed 20, which shoulders the gutter between road and gravel, and the gravel purist Breed 30. Having only ridden the Carbon I can attest to its excellent ride qualities and the promising aerodynamics, and there cannot be much doubt that if you are looking for speed on gravel, the Carbon Breed has left behind its predecessors.

I was very taken with the Felt Breed Carbon in its capacity as a gravel bike. My off-custard / crème brulée edition looked fantastic, felt very fast, pliable and safe on the more reliable end of the surface spectrum, and gave me ideas for all kinds of different adventures I could undertake with some component fiddling.

In a world where n+1 still rules despotically, I am always keen to steer riders towards a more simple n, with n+1 reserved for wheelset or tyre purchases. The versatility that Felt have angled for is achieved via the large range of wheel size options, tyre clearances, and groupset capacity, and being able to spend an additional £150 on some nice road tyres and be off on a totally different kind of ride is a huge plus. It will be at its absolute best tearing up the dust trails of something like Strade Bianche, but there is very little the Breed Carbon won’t do admirably well.

• Buy the Felt Carbon Breed Advanced from feltbicycles.com (£5,939 / €6,599/ $7,549)

Felt Breed Carbon Advanced spec