Bike Check: Dan Milner’s ‘Modern Klunker’ Yeti SB115

Nice. A bike for riding the kind of riding I like to do.

I presume this should read. My adventure dream adventure spec within the constraints of my sponsors catalogue

13.2kg….

Sounds much more realistic than some of the nonsense weights thrown around the forum.

Makes my 13.6kg Occam seem fairly light.

Hmmm, looks like someone was one article short of his contractual obligations for the year.

Was just about to say – its a general do-it-all mountain bike. Why does the bike industry seem so obsessed with giving bikes labels.

4 pot brakes and smaller rotors save weight and good for prolonged descents.

To my mind (completely unsceintific guesswork) both of those things are wrong.

Clearly in the first case, he has proved himself correct by measuring – that he has saved a fraction of weight.

But I also had in mind that a nice big heat dissipating rotor would have less fade/more consistency with the big rotors as a heat sink, giving up some of the first contact full power of a 4 piston setup thats more suited for big dollops of power for short sharp uses at high speed and/or with a heavy rider.

I got one paragraph in, realised it was an advertorial and went elsewhere.

People need to start demanding lighter bikes

Why? If you want crazy light stuff, it’s available, if not front and centre off the shelf.

i love the idea of just calling our bikes ‘mountain bikes’ and stopping there…. but there are different genres of riding and riders, that occupy very different places on the MTB spectrum (and of course in marketing speak), and those distinctions do help people identify with geometries and component choices that will be best for their riding.
I ride a pretty chunky “enduro’ bike most of the time here in the Alps —which I love— but I remember riding ultra light XC hardtails here too, and theres always something about a lighter more noble bike, especially when faced with the kind of big unknowns that wild adventures present.
Yeah I know the Klunker acronym is stretching it – but hey, when did I ever make an earnest serious video?

I got one paragraph in, realised it was an advertorial and went elsewhere.

Sorry if it came across like that.. not my intention. My idea was to try to shed some light on the kind of bike that comes with me to high altitude, wild corners of the world, and to talk about the choices and reasoning I make when building it (this comes after a couple of paragraphs in.)
Of course that said, I am an grateful ambassador for some brands so it is inevitable that a bike check piece will risk looking like an advertorial (though not all these parts are from sponsors), as it would if it were about an EWS or DH racer’s bike. So yes, bike checks like this are indeed unavoidable ‘eyes on the product’ pieces, but also (I hope) give an insight into the kind of set up ridden at the edges of our sport.
Certainly the support the brands give people like me, and many other globe-trotting photographers out there, helps me go and shoot the stories I do.

Dissector front, DHR rear? Does he ride everywhere backwards!?

LOL. I get where you’re coming from there —certainly there was a big move to riding DHR II as a front tyre a couple of years ago, and it left a legacy. Tyres are very much a personal choice, but they are one of the most important decisions to make on an “adventure bike” – getting the balance between weight, resilience, grip (climbing, braking and cornering), predictability and so on. That said, I tend to stick with the Maxxis design guys on this one, accepting that they probably knew what they were doing when they designed the DHR II primarily as a rear tread (big square cross blocks dish out climbing grip), and the Dissector as either F or R.
But hey, it’s just the set up that works for me.

Pro photographer and Shimano ambassador Dan Milner has been exploring remote places on his mountain bike for three decades. His ambitious search for trails has led him through places as diverse as North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Patagonia’s sub-Antarctic islands. Check him out at danmilner.com

*swoons*

I think the problem for manufacturers when it comes to weight is the diversity and ability of many riders these days. Bikes are so capable these days, you could make your short travel frame lighter and it could be fine for a light skillful rider but there’s no guarantee it’s not going to be bought by an 18 stone rider who’s going to huck it off a 1.5m drop. No manufacturer wants a rep for bikes that break and riders expect decent warranties. I imagine a combination of these 2 things will lead to a degree of over engineering to keep on the right side of weight/strength ratio. When I started biking it wasn’t unusual for a rigid bike with cantis to weigh 29lb. When you consider what a modern bike is capable of it’s amazing they’re as light as they are.

I think that manufacturers/magazines/whatever should be quoting bike weights without tyres (rather than without pedals). Tyre choice makes a big difference in overall bike weight.

Very nice I don’t see the Klunker in it anywhere.

So it’s a downcountry, klunker, wilderness adventure bike that’s capable of being ridden up and down big hills. Think we need to come up with a more concise name, maybe mountain bike?

I love the idea of ditching the tags and calling it all mountain biking, just like it was back in the 1980’s. But things have (thankfully) moved on with our bikes since the Klunkers and rigid 15-speed Raleigh Mavericks. As soon as specialisations in the sport appeared (albeit mostly through racing) we were destined to embrace different frame designs and geometries, and diverging demands on components.
I’d argue that the industry tags that arose (DH, Freeride, XC, Trail, Enduro, Downcountry, etc… and even the glorious K.L.UNK.E.R, along with its soon to be BAFTA nominated voice over 😆!) help us riders identify the kind of bikes that best suit our own preferred type of riding. And of course (cynically) allow marketing peeps to get excited.
It is all mountain biking and of course many of us like to blend the categories and not be pigeon-holed, but even the DH bikes that were part of what was ‘just mountain biking’ in the early 90’s, with their triple crown forks and heavy builds, were already becoming a different breed to the lightweight bikes most of us were riding, and wouldn’t have fared well on the bridleways we looked for —just as my Cannondale M800 and 35mm-travel Pace RC35 forks wouldn’t have fared great on the DH tracks then. Both were ‘mountain biking’, but the distinction in genres helped riders find what they were aspiring towards.

Mountain biking isn’t tennis: it’s much more divergent. (he says inviting a torrent of abuse from tennis enthusiasts, that inevitably leads to a forum debate over lawn vs clay..). Similarly a $150 Walmart mountain bike, with its 26” wheels, 18 gears and nobbly tyres has less off-road capability than a contemporary decent gravel bike, so perhaps we should just call them all “bikes”?

I think that manufacturers/magazines/whatever should be quoting bike weights without tyres (rather than without pedals). Tyre choice makes a big difference in overall bike weight.

Good point. What a lot of people dont realise when they see a (rarely) listed bike weight is that it is listed without pedals. So you can add 400g+ to that listed weight. Back when companies commonly did list bike weights, we saw a lot of bikes supplied with lightweight tyres with very shallow treads that might be fine on the dusty trails of California or the buff Colorado Trail, but were pointless everywhere else. You still see a lot of lighter weight tyres spec’d on 29’ers, for the same reason -to keep overall listed weight down. That said, maybe the industry is assuming you will likely change the tyre for something more suitable to your home trail conditions anyway? Just like swapping out the saddle. These are things we offered to do in the shop for free on a new bike when I worked in a bike shop in Bristol even in the early 1990’s. Do shops still do that?

… and without constraints of a normal person’s wallet

I get ya, though when I first filed this piece, the ed suggested it didn’t have enough of the ‘exotic’ rare to find, uber-elitist, anodised, lust-merchant parts in the build! I guess you can’t please everyone all the time eh.

Also, does a light bike really make much difference apart from when you’re carrying the thing? Often people seem to confuse ‘light’ with ‘fast rolling’, but while light changes the feel and acceleration of a bike slightly, does losing, say two kilos from the weight a mountain bike really make a significant difference over the course of a day in the saddle?

Also, does a light bike really make much difference

I’d say in most regular situations then perhaps the bike weight (so long as its reasonable) doesnt make a massive difference to a 2 hour loop —especially if the terrain we’re riding calls for a heavier-hitting build and going light means compromising the resilience or ride quality. We have to realise that the pace we’re hitting trail features now is a lot heavier and harder (often without necessarily a lot more skill) than we used to, so beefing up bikes was inevitable in an industry fearing law suits. But then a lighter bike does make for a more nimble ride, and genuinely feels less like dragging an old mule along a trail on all-day (or multi day) endeavours. Adventure means enjoying the climbs too, not just enduring them for the gravity reward.
A lot depends on rider-weight:bike-weight ‘ratio’ too, just as the bigger wheels don’t necessarily cut it for shorter riders. A 2kg lighter bike might spell a lot more difference to a 55Kg rider than a 80Kg rider, and the latter might benefit from heavier duty components.
Much also comes down to geometry. Long bikes with long chainstays don’t feel as energetic on climbs as a rule, and along with more weight (especially when carrying — my riders know that 4 hour hike-a-bikes are typical on my trips) can turn an adventure into a grind.
As TomParkin says above, weight reduction is a game of diminishing returns. You have to find your own sweet spot.