The Breed is Felt’s dedicated gravel bike for 2021 and the £2,159 / €2,399 / $2,899 Breed 20 is the more expensive of two available builds.
Somewhat confusingly, Felt sells the Breed range alongside its Broam adventure road bike. Both bikes use aluminium frames and are geared up to go off-road.
The way we’ve interpreted the lineup is Felt’s Breed is more of a gravel race bike while the Broam is more of an explorer with less of an emphasis on speed. The Broam is also significantly cheaper, with complete builds starting from just £1,249 / €999 / $1,299.
As you’d expect for the price, the Breed frame is aluminium rather than carbon, but it’s a fully-featured chassis with everything you’d want from a modern gravel bike. It’s a sharp looker too, thanks to dropped chainstays, smooth welds and a classy ‘satin velvet’ paint finish.
Felt claims this bike delivers "classic road bike manners", but delving into the spec sheets it’s interesting to see how this bike’s geometry differs from some competitors.
Compared to Canyon’s aluminium Grail, for example, the Breed has a shorter wheelbase and reach figures for each given size but a significantly slacker head angle.
To complement the slack head angle, the Breed’s carbon fork has a longer than usual offset figure of 50mm. It’s the opposite of what Canyon is doing with the Grail's steeper head angle and shorter fork offset.
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There are three bottle cage mounts within the front triangle and a fourth on the top tube for a bento box storage bag.
The frame will accept either 650b or 700c wheels, but comes fitted with 700c Devox branded alloy rims with an internal diameter of 21mm.
The rims are fitted with tubeless-ready Vittoria Terreno Dry TNT 40mm tyres. There’s clearance for up to 45mm tyres if you stick with 700c or the frame will officially accept up to 2.1in with 650b wheels fitted.
The bike is sold with the hardware to fit full-length mudguards and is fully compatible with panniers thanks to concealed luggage mounts, including one particularly smart one that integrates with the rear seat clamp.
The Breed 20 is dressed in SRAM’s Force 1 groupset – meaning taut, proven 1x11 shifting and excellent control from flat-mount hydraulic disc brakes. Rather than run the standard SRAM Force chainset, Felt has upgraded the Breed 20 with a Praxis Works Zayante Carbon-S 40t chainset. This spins in a T47 bottom bracket shell.
The build is completed with a lot of parts from in-house brand Devox, but also includes a Prologo Dimension saddle. Our size 56(L) test bike tipped the scales at a respectable 9.36kg (without pedals).
You only have to head across to our list of the best gravel bikes to realise this area of the marketplace is somewhat saturated. Still, the Breed 20 looks likely to be another great choice thanks to its considered specification, keen pricing and practical features. You’ll have to stay tuned to BikeRadar to find out whether or not this bike lives up to the hype.
