Sure, the glory days are over. Yeti's successes with John Tomac and Juli Furtado, with bikes such as the C-26, the road bike handlebar or the "Frank the Welder" stem can be found in the history books of mountain biking, but no longer on the trails. Yeti is alive and well, and just like back then, the company from Colorado is still doing things differently today. The SB95 stands out visually and technically. It combines an aluminium main frame with a carbon rear end (unfortunately heavy). The Switch technology with eccentrically mounted rear triangle is designed to neutralise chain forces - and it works. Already in our reader test (BIKE 8/14), the test riders immediately recognised the qualities of the bike. They praised the drive efficiency, the riding position and the handling. Now the winner of the readers' hearts enters the ring again to compare it with the latest competition.
The aluminium head tube houses a 34 mm Fox with 140 mm travel, Yeti offers a 120 mm fork as an alternative, which would emphasise the sporty character of the bike. But even with the long fork (albeit with a reversed stem), the bike motivates you to pedal hard. When climbing, the rear remains calm, the front wheel does not rears up on steep slopes and the stiff fork makes its way downhill. In a direct comparison with the competition on the hard trails in the Ötztal, you can feel that the rear end has to struggle with quick hits. The rear end rattles, the compression damping is overstretched and you have to work a lot harder on the bike. But that's complaining on a high level. If you want to moan, you can do so about the inadequate bottle cage mount
under the down tube. And about the lack of a dropper post, which you wouldn't want to be without on such bikes today. But anyone who buys a Yeti is more likely to build it up from the bare frame as desired (the full carbon SB95 C costs 3199 euros).
Conclusion The Yeti is cool, the Yeti is desirable and it's great fun. A singletrail rocket with many talents. Points are awarded for the bottle cage, dropper post and warranty.
PLUS Efficient rear triangle, sporty handling, lightweight wheels
MINUS High frame weight, no bottle cage possible in the frame
