A few weeks ago, a big box arrived at my workplace from Yeti Cycles. A peek inside at the time revealed a glimpse of shocking-electric-lime-colored goodness. It also revealed the beginnings of a ground-up assembly project. This box was BIIIIG - - think standard bike box but over 12” wide. And you know how bikes are usually partially-assembled in the box? Not this one. In one part of the box was the bare frame; the rest of the box contained all of the rest of the individual components. Wild.

What was gratifying was the frame needed NO pre-assembly prep. Bottom bracket shell, head tube, etc. were all chased and faced and ready to start attaching parts onto. So here it was in the stand and ready to begin:




. . . and that’s about as far as it got for over a week. A downhill race in Port Angeles, followed by a week vacation, followed by a running race and the poor Yeti languished in my basement awaiting my return. So a flurry of work ensued when I got back . . . a couple of late-late nights and she was starting to resemble a bike finally.




At this point, it was after midnight Wednesday morning a week ago. I still needed to run the shift cables, adjust derailleurs and install the brakes. Guess I was going to have to ride the first Wednesday night XC race of the season on the DH bike.


So this week, I finally got on it and vowed to finish by Wednesday. Ran the shift cables, hooked everything up, set limit screws a close as I could dial them, then turned to on the brakes.
Only thing left at this point was to shorten the rear brake hose and bleed it.




I chased around on Tuesday to the farm supply store (60cc syringes), the hardware store (drip irrigation fittings [more on that later], vinyl tubing, tubing clamps, o-rings, etc.) and the auto parts store (brake fluid - - I only had DOT3 at home). Hint: nobody carries DOT5.1 brake fluid. They may show it online but it’s not in their stores. Motorcycle shops probably would have been the safer bet but what did I know at the time? Settled for DOT4 and hightailed it home.

I'd never bled Avids before. People told me they found them a bit fussy and I concur. It seemed to take way more snapping the lever to rid the master cyl. of air bubbles than the instructions lead you to believe. So now it’s after midnight Wednesday morning (again). Brakes were good and ready to bed the pads.

Wed. lunchtime, ran the bike in to the shop so Danny the mechanic could readjust my adjusting of the shifting (haha - - wasn’t as close as I thought). After work, I found a big-ass long hill to bed the brakes. An hour later it got its first-ever ‘shakedown cruise’ ride - - Wednesday night XC race #2.

More how it rides as I get more time on it; but suffice to say that it lived up to my stoke. It flat moves. The fun part is, it accelerates quickly enough to where I actually had speed for hitting lips and other little trail features fast enough to grab a little air off them - - even slip in little ‘mini-whip’ now and then (hope those Crossrides can handle that kind of foolishness). It wants to run . . . and pop off stuff . . . and BLAST the descents. It allows you to carry so much speed off even slight descents, you can sneak up on other riders pretty quickly.

You’d think with 6” of travel that climbing would be a seated-only affair but not so - - I found mid-length climbs and those punchy, short-steep ones are actually better attacked standing cranking more often than not. The traction is just there when you need it. And if you accelerate seated, the Switch pivot lets it hook up and go with no squat or hesitation.

I found the hard way (dropped chain) that I need to do some more work on chain length; but at this point, I couldn’t be more pleased with its performance. Looking forward to getting a LOT more time on it in the near future.


Yeti arsenal:

Dayum. That's one fine looking bike. You have a dropper on there? Can't tell from the picture...it doesn't look like it to me, but I feel like you would one on there, so yeah. Also, is that 3x10...?

For some reason I thought you also had a Yeti DJ. Am I delusional or did you have one at one point?

It's hard to show in a photo just how awesome that color is

If you put a seat bag and a frame pumpon that thing it will make a much better commuter

Its a lot easier to take a link out than add one

I'm digging the cabinetry and the counter depth fridge

I got some 5.1 last week from motorcycle-superstore

Haha, I'll take this one piece at a time:

Dropper will be first on the list of upgrades after my CFO (wife) recovers a bit from my little spending spree of the SB66, 4 Maxxis tires and some Renthal goodies. I spent some 'political capital' to get that far . I'm thinking the GD Descender. I don't need a remote, it's stone-axe-simple spring-operated and I can work a button just fine.

Yeah, shameful I know - - that's what the base Enduro build comes with, X5 triple. I will be losing the big ring, putting on probably my Sunline bash (a little nostalgic homage) and going to a 38/26 or some such for middle and small with something like a Blackspire Stinger guide. Sure wish Renthal made some ramped-and-pinned rings too.

I sold it late last year. I suck at jumping a hardtail; and the foray in BMX racing did not go as planned. Instead it landed me in the hospital with cracked ribs, pneumothorax complete with lovely, super-comfy chest tube and almost* a promise to quit racing altogether. * Later conditionally negotiated away

It actaully got the seat bag the other night - - only because all my tools were in it already and I was too lazy to empty it into my camelbak. Should I write to complain about the lack of rack mounts?

True that. I went through the usual procedure of big-to-big bypassing the derailleur, cycled the suspension thru and added an inch but, dayum, the chain seems awefully long still. Two spots in the travel - - when the Switch rotates rearward and at full compression - - really gobble a lot of chain. As it was, on the llast climb of the course the other night, I dropped to granny (dumb) in a low cog and dropped the chain. Cost me about 5 minutes of futzing to get going again. Next lap, I left it in middle, shifted all the way down and attacked the last half of the climb standing and crested it just fine. I gotta resist the urge to use that damn granny.

Thanks. Cabinets came from the local daily that has laid off 2/3 of their workforce and wanted to clear two floors to lease out. Base and wall cabs plus two full-height wardrobes; plus both the garage and basement workshops get massive amounts of 3'-deep drwwer units to hold power and hand tools and such. Was quite a coup. That floor in the bike area will get concrete stain and gonna lay new formica on the pukey-beige contertops. 'Fridge is dedicated beer-overflow .

Realized afterward that's what I shoulda done. Silly me. Funny too how many places, when you tell 'em you're looking for 5.1, say oh yeah we got it, walk to the shelf and try to give you 5.


I will add another riding impression that I forgot to mention from the other night: the thing corners like it's on . . . pick-your-cliche'. Holy crap! The first few turns were all it took to convince this downhiller that he chose the right trail bike. I love the handling - - and feel that nothing about the slackness imparts any negative traits to the bike. It felt right at home almost right away and just begged me to push it from the start.

Mmmmmmm mmmmmmm good.

You are starting to sound like an XC racer! Awesome Yeti stuff again. Reminds me of the Bumble Bee! Muscle bound.

^^Haha - - back in the day, Chrysler Corp had a lot of wild colors (remember Plum Crazy?). One, paint code GY3, was Citron Yellow (Dodge) or Curious Yellow (Plymouth). Much akin to the SB's Lime:

That's when cars were worth driving. Your ribs been taking a beating the past few years. Here's hoping this is an ER Free year!

I rode DH at Snowshoe WV this past weekend. Two of our group were on SB66's, and although admittedly they weren't repeatedly pounding the burliest rocky lines there, afterward both of them were very pleased with their choice and raving about the versatility of this bike.

^^ I can totally see that. There are a number of buff/fun runs at Whistler that I would not hesitate to slam the seat and rally on it. Would be very interesting to lauch some of the jumpier trails on something with more pop. Although I think I would get a second, 'thrashable' wheelset for said purpose.

Last week's Wed night XC race took us on a loop of the 24-Hour race course. Was alone once again on a new section of trail that bias crosses a head-high, about-10-ft-wide 'dike' of earth. charged across the flat and was able to throw a bitty whip off the lip. If the approach had a downslope, it's one you could conceivably gap the top to a backside transition, which would be oh-so-cool to do in an XC race . . . but dang I cannot pedal a flat that fast.