The New Yeti SB140 Is Yeti’s 27.5in Trail Slayer

by 0

Gotta have Turquoise in there, right?

It was the big unfilled hole in the line, so it was no great surprise to see the Yeti SB140 launching today a couple of weeks after the SB165 but it’s arguably a much more important bike for UK riders (or any trail riders without access to uplifts or constant gnar) coming with that sweet spot of Goldilocks travel that’s capable enough for the descents, but without too much of a weight or pedal penalty on the climbs.

And the new orange colour, which is also good.
There will be four specs available. Prices are… as you might expect, rather spicy.

If you’ve not been paying attention, this is the fifth new Yeti to launch in the last year or so. The numbers refer to the amount of rear wheel travel and go as follows:

Which should all be simple, except there are two different wheel sizes hidden in there. The SB100, SB130 and SB150 are all 29ers, while the SB165 and SB140 are 27.5 wheeled. Confused? Sorry…

Looks like it’s hard to keep the front wheel down. 😉
There will also be a frame-only option
And, like all 2020 bikes, room for a bottle.

Back to the Yeti SB140 then. As you’d expect, it has 140mm rear travel and (here) a 160mm fork. Like all of its new generation bikes, Yeti has brought the geometry bang up to date, with a slack 65° head angle and a pretty steep 77° seat angle, along with stretching the top tube out too for that modern ride. It has apparently been designed “to reward riders who like to rip and find creative lines on their local trails.”

The SB140 sits squarely between two of Yeti’s most popular models, the SB5 and SB6. The SB5 and SB6 will be discontinued for 2020 and the bike product line has been simplified into two categories — bikes that race (SB100 and SB150) and bikes that rip (SB130, SB140, and SB165).

Pickup truck sold extra. Might actually be cheaper though. 
But if you happen to find one in a sunny glade…

So Yeti is saying that if you’re an XC or marathon racer, you want an SB100, if you’re an enduro racer, you want the SB150. If you just like riding trails, then pick a SB130 or SB140 depending on your liking of the wheel size. Simple!

This is a new colour for Yeti. A mid-grey.

And for 2020, the bike line has more progressive leverage rate curves, giving the bikes great pedaling characteristics, controlled mid-stroke and a bottomless feel. Which should suit everyone, right?

Tune in shortly for our first impressions of the new Yeti SB140. Meanwhile, here’s a video showing the kind of thing we’ve been doing on our secret test bike…

Fun fact fans might like to note that the photographer on this bike launch was Calder Valley local and cold weather fan Ben Page, while the lad with the ‘tache in the video is called Easton, and Hannah knows his Dad. Small world. That scene where they’re hanging out in the back of the truck looking like happy campers…? They were being eaten alive by biting flies. Which is probably something we can replicate more easily than all that jibbing.

More details can be found on yeticycles.com

Singletrack Weekly Word

Sports Newsletter of the Year finalist at the Publisher Newsletter Awards 2024. Find out why our newsletter is different and give it a go.

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

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.)

More posts from Chipps