Although the majority of its bikes are now made in the Far East, Colorado company Yeti still has a great amount of heritage in its ‘Made in the USA’ roots. In fact, many of the prototypes and some of the smaller runs of bikes (like the 4X) are still made in Golden, Colorado. The company shuts for 90 minutes every lunchtime for a near-mandatory lunchtime ride and Yeti pays over the odds for its workshop space purely for the access out the door to some great trails… With some pretty groundbreaking technology (like its Rail technology and the new Switch suspension) it’s also leading the high-tech charge of all-mountain carbon and aluminium frames too.
Top of the shop here is the Yeti Arc hardtail. Still with the looped stays, but now with a really nice variation on the classic Yeti turquoise and white scheme.
Big Top - here's the 29er hardtail in all new stealth black. It's not going to be long before we see one in carbon we reckon.
In a surprising move to more chunkiness, the 575 will now come with an aluminium rather than carbon back end. This will drop the price though!
A very popular bike at the show was this SB-66C - the carbon version of the SB66. It's shipping in five weeks and it's 1.5lb lighter than the ally one. £2599 if you're keen.
Small run bikes like this gorgeous 4X bike are still made in Colorado. £1399
The SB-95. It's like an SB-66, only for those big wheels.
Here's the 303WC - now 'only' 9lbs, still uses a linear rail, plus a pivot. Look for the team to be racing carbon ones soon!
Retro Alert : Retro Alert!
Here’s Frank the Welders’ personal Yeti Ultimate. It was one of the first ones ever made and was also the test-ground for the ATac stem and Bullseye cranks too, which Frank was also involved with…
Your bike wasn't cool in 1992 without a pair of these...
Retro frenzy! Oh, just Chipps then...
And now this bike isn’t actually Tomac’s, but it’s as close as you’ll ever get. It’s a C-26 carbon and aluminium frame – one of only a handful ever made, and it has a painstaking retro build to reproduce Tomac’s 1990’s World Champs bike, including period-correct Dura Ace shifters (Tomac was a road pro that year too!)
With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)
Those porcupines look like they have a few miles left in them, maybe a couple of hundred if you’re lucky. And to think they were the tyres to go for if you were downhilling, all 1.95″ of them.
Aluminium flex stays on the 575? Hmmmm…
Love the Yeti Ultimate but prefer the subtlety of the old school steel FRO PRO in black – mate had one with Bullseyes that was the epitome of cool.
The coolest man in motorcycle racing Giovanni Bussei has an Ultimate as his pit bike
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JNgH2kk8pu4/SiBW0_nWShI/AAAAAAAADe0/Ql3XGE-m8PE/s400/Sideburn+Bussei+Yeti.JPG
Story here –
http://sideburnmag.blogspot.com/2009/05/bussei-at-mallory-supermoto.html
Lovely bikes. That Yeti Ultimate was my dream bike once. Still looks pretty awesome if you ask me.
Onza purple bar ends, Thumbies, or white porcupines? All three of course….
Not just Chipps!
Those porcupines look like they have a few miles left in them, maybe a couple of hundred if you’re lucky. And to think they were the tyres to go for if you were downhilling, all 1.95″ of them.