I’ve got to admit I missed the clever little wordplay in the name when the Felt Nexar launched back in March. But the cleverness in the bike itself was evident from the outset.
‘Nexar’ sounds like a particle from deep space or perhaps an interplanetary frequency, but it turns out it’s a spliced ‘Next AR’. The original Felt AR was ridden by the Garmin-Slipstream team in 2008 and was one of the original aero road bikes, updated in 2014 and 2020. But I think there’s even more to the Nexar’s name than that. Felt was acquired by Cesar Rojo and Florian Burguet and is now based in Barcelona, with the Nexar and the Breed gravel bike the first products to come out of the restructured company: surely it’s no coincidence that the ‘-ar’ of Nexar turns the word into a Spanish infinitive, ‘to next’, a verb that could neatly describe the brand’s latest direction of travel, one that is clearly defined via this progressive yet practical aero bike?
Aero bikes in 2026 have to do more than just be aerodynamic. Now they’re used for all stages, from the cobbles to the high mountains. Innovation in the aero bike segment has accelerated recently: in the last two years we’ve seen the new Colnago Y1Rs and the Factor ONE at the cutting edge of radical design, with bikes such as the Ridley Noah Fast and the Cervélo S5 offering reworked tube and component shapes. The new owners at Felt would have been acutely aware that they needed to innovate or die. They took a gamble with the Nexar, and it has paid off.
I wrote about the Felt Nexar when it was launched. In summary, Felt said the Nexar is “one of the fastest full-aero bikes on the market”, claiming that it is within four watts of the fastest competitor, while reducing drag by five per cent over the previous Felt AR.
As for its weight, Felt lists a very light 6.48kg in the top FRD carbon layup with Dura-Ace specification in size 54. It says at 800 grams, its frame is the lightest of the full-aero category.
The geometry is “modern aero”, based on a slightly higher stack, shorter reach and designed around shorter cranks. There are seven sizes and Felt’s own lightweight integrated cockpit. Here are my impressions of the flagship Nexar FRD.
Frameset
FRD stands for ‘Felt Racing Development’ and is used to denote the brand’s top carbon layup, which Felt says reduces the frame weight by 300 grams compared to the previous generation. There are T800, T1000 and T110 fibres along with selective use of 30-40 ton fibres in key load areas such as the head tube, bottom bracket and rear triangle. An optimised ply layup is used, with fewer overlaps and thinner low-resin plies.
The Expert and Race versions of the Nexar frame meanwhile are made from T700 and T800 with “slightly thicker plies with more overlap for long-term toughness”. Felt says these frames are 300 grams heavier than the FRD and Pro versions, but equally reliable and obviously lower priced.
It’s hard to appreciate it from the photos, but the aero tubes are incredibly narrow. In frontal profile, they’re slimmer than the 28mm tyres. The seatpost doesn’t even have enough space for a Di2 battery – that’s positioned up behind the bottom bracket.
The frame’s aesthetic is angular, brutalist almost, with the exception of the seat tube curving forward to bring the rear wheel in closer, while the bottom of the main triangle finishes in a fairing-like shelf that’s there to fill in the gap and clean up the airflow.
The head tube is long and deep, with shaped sections leading the airflow onto the top tube and down tube, and a teardrop-shaped centre section. The fork legs finish in small wings.
Overall, it’s a clean-looking structure, integration perfect and no visible bolts other than those of the bottle cages, though I would ideally have liked the seatpost clamp cover on the top tube to have sat fully flush – just for perfection’s sake.
The Textreme-like 12K weave on the surface gives it an almost unexpectedly classic look.
The new cockpit, light at 300 grams, is designed not just as an aero handlebar/stem but also as a structure that plays a part in the bike’s progressive geometry. The stem section is short (100mm on the size 56) while the tops are swept forward instead of straight out at 90 degrees from the stem. It’s zero rise, since the cockpit is designed to be slammed onto a tall head tube without spacers. The width at the hoods is a modern, narrow 38mm.
Geometry and fit
This is where the Felt Nexar gets properly radical: “A bike can only be fast if a rider can hold power, stability and comfort in an aerodynamic position. This is why we created a new geometry concept. Through extensive benchmarking across brands, models and sizes, combined with insights from professional fitters, we introduce a modern bike fitting philosophy”.
A higher stack and shorter reach in the past was scoffed at as ‘endurance’ geometry for old men, but now that pros are raising their bars and aero testing is showing that bringing forearms upwards towards the chest while dipping the head low is faster, Felt’s philosophy is right on the money.
This doesn’t only potentially make the bike and rider faster as a system, but it democratises the fit, too. The long and low race bikes were designed for pros, but Felt says the Nexar works for 99 per cent of riders. Although I can only say whether it works for me or not – it does – I believe this.
I didn’t find the stack height excessive at all. In the size 56 the stack-reach ratio is 1.47. The Factor Ostro VAM has 1.44 and the Specialized Tarmac SL8 1.43.
The seat tube is positioned so that you in theory don’t need a setback seatpost (Felt doesn’t offer one for the Nexar anyway). Although it’s 74 degrees in the size 56, the position to me didn’t feel extreme at all. The geometry is designed to align the rider without setback.
The size 56 comes with 170mm cranks, which has become the standard length for this size, so nothing crazy here either.
Ride impressions
My first impressions started long before my first pedal stroke. Lifting the frame out of the box was quite mindblowing: deep aero tubing like this doesn’t usually weigh so little. As promised, the full build for the size 56 came in just under 7kg. The Vision Metron 45 RS wheelset, which is also very light at 1,290 grams, helps with this. They’re premium wheels, with a SRP of £3,000 – almost a third the price of the full bike. With the full Dura-Ace and 4iiii power meter it’s an impressive build for what is a relatively competitive price.
As for the fit, I was bracing myself for something that potentially would take some getting used to but, as I’ve already suggested, it worked for me. The difference in rider weight distribution with a slightly steeper effective seat tube angle (via the zero offset seatpost) and a shorter but slightly higher front end was negligible, and the position made it very easy to get into an TT-like tuck that was comfortable and sustainable, as Felt’s engineers intended. And then, on climbs when it’s more efficient to sit upright to produce power, the Nexar nails it too.
It took just a short shakedown ride for me to decide the Nexar would be perfect for a road-bike time trial. Wherever possible, I’m aiming to ride all review bikes – at least the ones designed for racing – in ‘anger’, because pinning on a number is the best way, or perhaps the only way, to really connect with them. You ride with commitment, and that gives me a deeper understanding of what a bike is all about. It also gives you a good story for the review – but I nearly got a horror story with this one.
The time trial I chose, which I first rode in 2004, is a challenging two-lapper near Bletchingley in Surrey that has a very steep descent with a sweeping, blind left-hander that is best taken at full speed. On the other side of the course waits a nasty, steep little-ring climb back up to the finish. There aren’t many sections where you can settle in, get your head down and pedal. It’s a proper ‘hardriders’ event, as they used to be known.
I had already discovered that the Felt’s handling was fast and responsive at lower speeds. At 65kph, going down Cooper’s Hill, I found it was exactly what I needed to steer around potholes that had appeared since I was last there. I could change my line perfectly confidently at high speed. On the first lap I did the descent in the drops but then, just as I shifted back up onto the hoods for the next flatter section, I hit a compression in the road that I hadn’t seen (I think I was checking my Garmin). My hands came off the bars, the bike swerved across the road, time slowed down and I had already accepted in that split second that I was going to crash. But suddenly and unexpectedly I was back in control, swearing with relief and wondering how I was still upright. I’m not going to try to repeat the manoeuvre just for this review, but I think the steering geometry saved me. It knew where it was going and it seemed to take over in that moment. Phew!
I found the Nexar great for more relaxed pedalling too. As I mentioned, the slightly taller stack means you can sit up and spin easily. I did notice that even at lower speeds and a more upright rider position, it still feels very efficient – the crisp, responsive ride feel is always there.
Verdict
The new-look Felt bicycle company knew what it had to do, and with the Nexar it did it. Just following trends or copying existing designs wasn’t going to cut it, especially from a brand that had gone a little quiet in recent years.
This is a brave bike and a bold move, and for me everything about it works. It goes fast in all scenarios and it looks fast too. At £9,899 for this top Dura-Ace build it’s competitively priced – I can confirm that Felt is back.
For all the details and specs visit Felt's website.
