Back in September 2019, I posted about a day all riders enjoy more than the 360 odd other days of the year: New bike day! That was the day I got my Yeti SB150 built-up to a rideable configuration. Now 7 months has passed, the bike has been through 1500km of variable riding and the build has finally reached a point where I can call the bike "finished". I will share my thoughts on the bike in general, only touching on the individual components as they will function more or less the same on any frame. This is 100% my own bike and I have not been sponsored for this review by anyone.
The build
Yeti offer the SB150 in 2 frame materials, both carbon, and 5 build kits. The C1 version starts at 5699USD, and like the C2, comes with the C-series frame and Performance level suspension, so Fox DPX2 in the back and 36 Performance up front. The T-series, which get the more expensive Turq frame and Fox Factory bling-level suspension, start with the T1 at 7199USD and top off at the eye watering 8599USD for the T3 versions. The frame only option is 3799USD and offered in Turq only.The frame is available in turquoise, anthracite grey and lime green for 2020, with the previous orange color discontinued for this year.
My build now closely matches what Yeti are marketing as the Turq T2 -version, but with the addition of carbon wheels. With an MSRP of 7 699USD with aluminum wheels, the T2 is the second from the top tier model, with the top T3 getting Sram AXS wireless shifting and a few other goodies, and another 900USD on the price tag.
My final build consists of:
- SB150 Turq 2019 frame, size Large
- Fox X2 Factory rear shock
- Fox 36 Factory GRIP2 170mm fork, SlikGraphics custom decals
- Sram X01 Eagle groupset
- Truvativ Descendant carbon GXP cranks, 170mm, 32T chainring
- OneUp V1 dropper post, 170mm
- OneUp V2 dropper remote
- OneUp carbon handlebars cut to 780mm
- OneUp ISCG5 chain guide, turquoise
- OneUp EDC top cap
- Sram Code R brakes, 200mm rotor front / 180mm rotor rear
- WTB Silverado black/gold saddle with carbon rails, narrow 133mm
- Raceface Turbine-R stem, 50mm, turquoise
- ODI Elite pro grips
- Shimano XT M8010 pedals
- Elite Cannibal XC bottle cage
- Wheelset 1, 1530g:
Rims: Nextie NXT29XM33 Premium carbon
Rear hub: Industry Nine Hydra, black
Front hub: Industry Nine 1-1, black
Spokes: Sapim CX-Ray, 28pcs
Valves: Peaty's x Chris King, turquoise
Front tyre: Schwalbe Magic Mary 29x2.35" Addix Soft
Rear tyre: Schwalbe Rock Razor 29x2.35" Pacestar
Sram Centerline F200mm / R180mm, titanium bolts
- Wheelset 2, 1760g:
Rims: Newmen SL A.30
Hubs: Sram 900
Spokes: Sapim CX-Ray
Valves: No-brand tubeless valves
Front tyre: Maxxis Minion DHF 29x2.5" WT EXO MaxxTerra
Rear tyre: Maxxis Minion DHR 29x2.35" EXO w/ Pepi's tyre noodle insert
Sram Centerline F200 / R180mm
I like to weigh my bikes ready to ride, so with pedals, but of course without the EDC tool and water bottle installed.
Weight with wheelset 1: 13,7kg
Weight with wheelset 2: 14,2kg
Geometry
The SB150 may not be considered the pinnacle of modern long, low, and slack geometry, but it's not far from it. The 480mm reach on the size large, 64.3 degreet headtube (HT) angle and 77 degree seat tube (ST) angle put it in what many consider the sweetspot. Not too long, but still nice and roomy. For me going with a size large was a no-brainer. At 5'11" or 180cm, the medium just felt too small, especially when sitting down.As with most modern bikes, the long front center is mostly noticable in the wheelbase and when riding standing up. The actual top tube length of 626mm is about average for a size large bike, so the bike feels like any other large bike when sitting down, apart from the slightly wondery feeling front end, which is due to the slack HT angle.
My personal preference is a slightly roomier pedalling position. I initially fitted a 40mm stem, but opted for a 50mm to give a bit more room and also help with controlling the steering. I also keep my bars rather low to help weigh the front end better, and find it strange how people can run super high stack stems or bars with a slack HT angle, and still try and maintain control of the front wheel. The OneUp bars I have come with 20mm rise, and I find this position works very well for me.
Yeti specify a reduced offset fork, which is understandable as reducing the offset will increase trail and make the bike more stable at high speed, but still help keep the steering nice and nimble in tight spots.
Yeti have opted for a modern, yet slightly higher bottom bracket height, which I think is a welcome addition in a long travel 29er. One of the major drawbacks of my previous Norco Range was the ridiculously low bottom bracket. Granted, I should have opted for 170mm cranks on the bike like like I did, now perhaps smarter, on the Yeti. If you only charge downhill with your cranks level, this is not an issue, but I find it frustrating to navigate pedaly sections and having to constantly watch out for pedal strikes. Yes, they still happen on the Yeti, but managing your cadence is much easier not having to look out for each individual root and rock.
Switch Infinity
The SB150, like all other Yeti bikes, use a glorified single pivot suspensions design with the lower pivot point mounted on a slider, which slides up and down two Fox made, Kashima coated sliders. This is called the Switch Infinity. In a way it works as VPP in Santa Cruz bikes, but it's different in that the up-down path of the the lower pivot is always linear. This system is used to increase anti-squat and help negate pedal kick-back when the suspension is compressed. The SI system is covered by a life-time warranty, just like the frame. Nice!Like any other suspension component, the SI system requires regular maintenance. Fox / Yeti recommend regreasing it every 50-100h of riding, depending on conditions. I have made it a habit to re-grease it every time I service the fork. Each slider is equipped with a little valve, where you insert a grease gun and inject grease into the slide. The grease must have MOS2 additives, and the Fox recommendation is basically comparable to CV joint grease used in automotive applications.
On the SB150, accessing the rear grease port requires you to remove the collet shaft that runs through the SI slider. Luckily they have designed it so that you can just undo the locking screw and shaft from the non-drive side, and the nut on the drive side can stay in the frame. Yeti provide detailed instructions on how to do this in their SB150 service manual.
Build quality
The Yeti frame, made in Vietnam, truly is a work of art, with impeccable finish everywhere and perfectly sculpted lines and frame features. The paint is superb and even, and all of the details well thought out. The Yeti motto "Hand built, race bred" is clearly visible in both the build quality and printed on the frame, together with the sliding Yetiman character on the top tube. A nice touch! However, the pretty exterior hides some minor drawbacks.
The cable routing is all internal and the frame comes with built-in guide tubes, so running cables is as easy as it can be. You insert the cable from one end and it comes out the other! Simple and easy. I have not experienced any cable rattle, which some people have complained about on internet forums, but I have noticed a different problem. It's apparently not unusual on the 2019 frames. The shift cable tries to wear the aperture for the internal routing to an oval shape. On my bike it's visible on the front triangle, but others have reported problems with the chainstay apertures as well. This is not really a dangerous thing, but rather annoying to have your perfect frame have one of the apertures wear down to an oval shape. I have put a piece of rubber liner on the frame aperture to prevent this from getting worse, and apparently the 2020 frames have metal reinforcement impedded in the carbon. I'm not sure if this could be a potential warranty claim to Yeti, but I would certainly not want to see this on a 4000€ frame!
The other problem I reported on some time ago, which is related to the rocker arm and frame connection tolerances. My report and remedy can be read here: The Yeti SB150 linkage has a design flaw - Here’s how to fix it!
One thing worth mentioning is the rear derailleur hanger. It's held in place by a large nut that works as the counterpart for the rear axle, so it's really nice and secure. The rear end is also obviously very well aligned as installing the rear wheel and axle is easy everytime and requires no wiggling or forcing to get things to align.
The bottom bracket is a pressfit BB92 and at least on my frame the alignment is good and a Sram or similar 2-piece pressfit bottom bracket can be fitted without issue. The headset is fully integrated with IS41 on top and IS52 at the bottom. I opted for a Canecreek 40-series headset, which has been trouble free since I built the bike.
The downtube has a nice, molded plastic protector. The 2019 models saw an update to this. On the first frames it didn't fit quite as nicely and left gaps that could collect dirt between the protector and the frame. This is not the case with the new protector, which fits perfectly. The "hump" in the downtube, which has allowed Yeti to fit a water bottle inside the front triangle, brings the downtube quite far forward from the bottom bracket, so the guard is definitely nice to have. There is also a nice little hatch at the base of the downtube to make routing the dropper post cable easier.
There is also a real headtube badge and not just a sticker, nice!
Ride impressions
As mentioned above, I now have about 1500km on the bike in various conditions from general trail riding to lift assisted bike parks. My previous long travel 29er was the Norco range, which I believe to be a fair comparison to the Yeti. The things that strike me the most are that the Yeti pedals considerably better, but is much more difficult to get airborne for some reason.Yeti have a nice suspension setup calculator on their website here: Yeti Cycles - Shock Setup SB150 and the recommendations for my weight can be seen below. Please note that these also depend on the build kit. If you don't have factory level suspension then the recommendations will be different.
Fox 36 GRIP2 fork
I have the fork set up with the high speed and lowspeed rebound at about half way, high speed compression 1 click from fully open and low speed compression 3 clicks from fully open. It's been a long trial-and-error process as the adjustments are abundant and also affect one another. I'm running 70psi for my 78kg / 171lbs weight, but for general trail riding prefer 65-68psi and for bike parks maybe 2-5psi more, depending on if there are big jumps and drops or not. It's worth noting that there is no lock-out on the GRIP2 fork, but I never use one anyway so it has not bothered me.Fox X2 shock
The rear shock is a whole different story! The X2 factory has every adjustment you can think of, so low and high speed compression and rebound, and the possibility to run volume spacers. I'm currently running 2 volume spacers and 170psi, so slightly less than the Yeti recommendation. Otherwise I have started with the Yeti suggested LSC/HSC & LSR&HSR settings, but I have opened up the LSC and HSC settings by 2 clicks. I find that if I have these at the Yeti suggested settings the rear end cannot keep up with repeated hits very well and ends up feeling harsh. Otherwise the X2 shock is amazing and combined with the Switch Infinity system the bike pedals extremely well with very little pedal pob, but the rear end still responds to any size hits very well. I still need to tweak the settings for bike park a little as I'm not comfortable with jumping on this bike. Somehow preloading before a jump is much more difficult on this than it was on the Norco Range, with had a DPX2 shock an Fox 36 performance fork.The uphill capable enduro bike?
Once the suspension has been set up, the bike rides every bit as well as I thought it would. I bought mine after a very short parking lot demo on an SB130, so no real world experience. Luckily I was not to be disappointed! Uphill the bike pedals considerably better than the Norco Range, and due to the steep seat angle, the rider is positioned central on the bike, which means you are less likely to feel like standing up to pedal even in steeper sections.
Downhill, the differences between the SB150 and the Range are blurred. The SB150 is a bike that requires more "body English" to go where you want it, but once you get used to it, it's extemely flickable and predictable. Straightline stability is perhaps not quite as good as on the Range, most likely due to the rather short rear end, but I have not found it to slow me down.
The rear end has some, what is apparently built-in by Yeti, flex to it, allowing the rear triangle to flex from side to side. The flex clearly comes from the top bearings joining the triangle to the shock rocker, but it's a feature that has been with the bike from new and not noticable when riding. Another point worth noting is that rear tyre clearance is somewhat limited. A Maxxis Minion DHR 2.3" leaves enough room on each side for it not to rub on the chain stay, but anything wider and you may have an issue, especially if you're not running particularly stiff wheels. This is not an issue if you have a properly tensioned rear wheel, and the 12x148 BOOST rear end spacing definitely allows for a nice and stiff wheel.
A refreshing change and what ultimately kept me from buying any of the previous Yeti SB models (apart from the outdated geometry), is the possibility to run a water bottle inside the front triangle. I have mine setup with an Elite Cannibal XC bottle cage, which is "semi side loading", meaning the bottle can be inserted at an angle. This is enough to clear the shock and I run a Camelbak Podium 600mm bottle in mine. This combined with the excellent OneUp EDC tool system has allowed me to ditch a backpack, and there's just no going back.
Conclusion
The suspension requires time to adjust, mainly due to the high adjustability of the factory level fork and shock, but once properly set up and maintained the bike offers that magic carpet ride -like ride only a long travel 29er can offer. It eats up chunder and gnar and lets you carry speed in sections that would otherwise bounce you around like a ping pong ball.The premium price Yeti demand for their bikes is justified in parts, and not so in others. I'm now referring to the cable routing apertures and the rear shock rocker dimension issues. Otherwise I can't fault the frame, and the Switch Infinity system pedals amazingly well, especially considering it's "just" a glorified single pivot affair. This makes the bike much more versatile than just a plain enduro brute, granted by today's standards 150mm of rear travel is more in the trail bike rather than enduro category. Maybe there's an SB170 in the horizon?
Having dreamt of owning a Yeti for who knows how long, I can't say I'm disappointed with the SB150, quite the contrary: It's probably the best, and most definitely the most expensive mountain bike I have ever owned, and I can see it remaining in my garage for quite some time to come.
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