I used to work at Yeti cycles as a welder and fabricator back in the 80's.

At that point time people on MTB's were experiencing a lot of problems with the chain clinging to the rings while shifting under load and causing severe chain jam between the chainstay and chainrings. Richard Cunningham of Mantis (later MBA magazine) came up with the idea (or at least applied it) of mounting the chainstays above the BB shall in a style known as "elevated chainstays".

Zapata Espinoza of MBA mag approached my boss, John Parker about building what he thought was the "ultimate" bike of the day. My co-worker, Chris Herting built a prototype frame to suit their needs for the magazine article. People began to request a production version of the bike and my job was to produce the drawings and tooling to process the materials to make the production bike.

There is one "prototype" that was made during the process. Chris, John and I worked together to achieve the aesthetic qualities and I fabricated the sample and figured out how to tool the job. The entire rear section was built out of bits and pieces of rear sections I had cut apart for that purpose.

That frame was spray-bombed flat black with a few black colored squares. I think it sold for $3600 a few months ago.

While proving all the tooling, we built a few additional samples. I used all the production tooling and also used the first rear sections from our designs that were supplied by our bending shop in Burbank.

I grabbed one of those bikes for myself. I was also welding bullseye cranks at the time for Roger Durham and had an ongoing relationship with Shimano, Onza and Answer products so the bike was well equipped with prototype shimano shifting system, "my own" bullseye cranks, an "FTW designed" Answer ATAC stem and the Yeti grips I had helped design. The wheels were built by Jed StHenri and have the single purple nipple (only one has been ID'd for sure)

I brought the bike with me to the Interbike trade show in Anaheim CA. (long before las vegas) and left it at a friends house in Tustin.

I was often in LA and usually stayed with these friends. They had kids the same age as ours and we shared many common interests. Except sports. They would break out the basketball and I would grab the bike and head to the hills.

Eventually, I wasn't spending time there anymore and didn't think too much about steel bikes with top mount thumb shifters and rigid forks. They took good care of the bike and used it on occasion but basically it was unused. I knew I could show up at any hour with zero notice and would be fed and cared for and had a bike to ride.

My buddy had worked for the same company his entire life. They had lived in the same house for 25 years. He was laid off, bounced back, laid off again. His wife lost both her breasts to cancer and times were tough. They got the kids through school but things got worse. The bank offered to help when things got really bad. After all, they had given the bank many years of business. BofA ended up selling the house without mentioning it until it to my friends till the deal was done.

At some point in the future this bike will be sold to help my friends. I am looking for photos of the bike being ridden and digging up some soft goods to add to the auction.

I need some tips how this bike should be prepared for sale by laymen. I will be helping but I am not very good at selling and have no idea how to write an attractive description.

I will add more pics when they become available.


Yeti ultimate by barnstormerbikes, on Flickr


IMAG0399 by barnstormerbikes, on Flickr


IMAG0400 by barnstormerbikes, on Flickr


IMAG0401 by barnstormerbikes, on Flickr