Felt Bicycles Partners With USA Cycling’s Track Program for Tokyo

June 10, 2021

The all-new TK FRD track bike, which will be ridden by members of USA Cycling in Tokyo this summer.

In celebration of USA Cycling's recent announcement of the final roster of athletes heading to Tokyo this summer, we're proud to announce that Felt Bicycles is continuing its partnership with USA Cycling’s track program leading into this summer’s marquee athletic competition. Velodrome-bound athletes have Felt’s TA FRD pursuit superbike and the brand-new TK FRD at their disposal. USA Cycling’s team of athletes includes the reigning world champion women’s team pursuit squad of Emma White and Lily Williams (who race on the road for the Felt-powered Rally Cycling trade team), Jennifer Valente (who races on the road for the trade team, TWENTY24 Pro Cycling), and Chloe Dygert.

Valente and Dygert return to this event for a second time—having placed second in the previous event held in 2016—as part of the women’s team pursuit squad. They will be joined in Tokyo by Emma White and Lily Williams. As the reigning UCI World Champions in the team pursuit, all of these athletes are familiar with Felt’s TA FRD pursuit superbike, originally built by Felt in collaboration with USA Cycling and a host of industry partners, specifically for their pursuit of a first-place result in the world’s biggest sporting competition.

Felt’s production TA FRD—with radical aerodynamic features including unique tube shaping, ultra-narrow hub spacing, and its signature left-side drivetrain—has withstood a four-year test of time and will again be the steed of choice for USA Cycling’s pursuit teams. It’s worth noting that this bike and iterations of USA Cycling’s women’s squad have won four world championships in the team pursuit event.

“Racing is in Felt’s DNA,” said Eric Sakalowsky, VP of Marketing at Felt Bicycles. “Projects like the TA FRD pursuit bike and even the TK FRD bike are purely focused on speed and performance. We are pushing the boundaries of athletic excellence and the world’s best equipment. For us, it’s all about the finish line, not the bottom line. There’s a deep-seated passion for competition at Felt and we’ll continue to take on projects like this so that we can take part in these athletes' passion for pushing our sport’s limits. In the end, all of our bikes and our company benefits when we attack our job of making the best product we can for these elite-level riders.”

Valente—along with fellow USA Cycling athletes Maddie Godby and Megan Jastrab—will take another bike to the boards in Tokyo in the form of the Felt TK FRD. Valente will race the Omnium discipline, and will partner with Jastrab for the Madison discipline. Godby is expected to race both the Keirin and Sprint disciplines as well.

In what has become a regular four-year challenge, Felt’s engineers took on a new bike project for the mass-start events in Tokyo. The Felt Bicycles product team started with the foundational learnings gleaned from the revolutionary development of the TA FRD superbike and applied many of the same material and aerodynamic principles to what would become the all-new TK FRD mass-start event track bike. Like the TA FRD, the all-new TK FRD is available for purchase now, by athletes around the world.

“I think that with so much uncertainty in regards to everything going on over the last year, that having something that's dependable is really important,” said Valente. “And our team’s equipment is one of those things that we rely on for everything. Going into each event, we know that we can count on our Felt bikes—both the TA FRD and the TK FRD.”

“Speed and winning are the name of the game,” said Bouker Pool, USA Cycling’s Chief Commercial Officer. “We are happy to have Felt as a part of USA Cycling to provide the fastest track bikes for our athletes, especially as they pursue gold in Tokyo this summer.”

The TA FRD superbike, winner of multiple UCI world championships, will be ridden by members of USA Cycling again this summer in Tokyo.

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