Felt Bicycles threw their sales reps a party (including a kart track day, the lucky dogs) over the weekend to show them at least some of the 2012 mountain bike offerings. On Monday, they invited the MBA wrecking crew to come visit their Irvine, California, headquarters and check out what the reps already knew.


Andy Holmes, Felt's mountain bike point man, took us through the mountain bike line after explaining that while Felt's road bikes have always overshadowed the mountain bikes (sales wise), the sales of their mountain bikes worldwide are growing faster than their forecasts. Andy and his crew were stoked.


The big news for the Edict, the dual-suspension World Cup cross-country race bike, is that you no longer have to rob a bank to race one. The $10,000 Limited is joined by the $5500 Edict Pro that gets a UHC Advanced DMC carbon frame and a Shimano XT 2x10 drivetrain. The stays are the same FAST (Felt Active Stay Technology) pivotless rear suspension as the Limited.


The Nine Series (29-inch wheel hardtails) gets a major expansion with two carbon framed bikes, the Team and the Elite, and five aluminum framed models. Prices will range from $5999 to $599 so Felt finally has every base covered for the serious 29er rider. The $2799 Elite carbon framed 29er uses a SRAM 2x10 drivetrain and 3.1-inch travel RockShox Reba RL fork.


One thing a Felt rider shouldn't do when we are standing around with a camera is to take a prototype, mule or pre-production Virtue for a lunch ride. Too late. We caught him. Although no production bikes were shown (expect them to show up in a few months), they did let slip that there will be Virtues in all carbon, all aluminum and carbon/aluminum versions, all using Felt's Equilink rear suspension that can be set at 4.7 or 5.1 inches of rear wheel travel without a change to the bike's geometry.


If you could ride as fast as Olympic medalist Michellie Jones, Jim Felt would carry your bike for you too.