Sometime late last summer I got an email from a friend saying there is a busted up old FRO I should take a look at in Rancho. I contacted the seller who confirmed that he has an early Yeti FRO but that it had a bent down tube and was missing some parts. He said he owned the bike nearly since new but it's had a rough life. At the time I was looking for a donor frame for my C-26 prototype replica project and this frame seemed to fit the bill.
I took a drive out and met the guy. He was an older fellow and seemed to have a few prongs missing from his fork if you follow my meaning. The bike was there in a heap of parts but it didn't look broken. I examined it a bit further and it really looked solid. The guy admitted that he got confused and must have looked at a different bike. He had a collection of crap in his garage and perhaps it was something else that was broken. Needless to say I found a very early 87ish Yeti FRO, with the rare round top tube, Simplex dropouts and BMX style headtube. Frame included the Yeti fork, Salsa stem, 1/2 of a Bullseye crank and some assorted crappy parts. It looks to have been repainted by a rattle can at least three times but it's all there.
I took the frame home and did some work cleaning it up and decided that it was too nice to cut up for the C-26 project. So, without any immediate plans (it's not my exact size) I just shelved it for the time being.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago I had another lucky break and scored a stash of old CBR parts which would not only complete the bike but with the high rise stem actually enable me to ride it.
CBR Stem:
CBR Front Wheel:
CBR Rear Wheel:
CBR Ti bar:
I have a complete mint Shimano M730 XT grouppo as well as some Bullseye and Cook cranks so I think I can make a legit bike out of this thing.
First I need to send the frame to FTW for alignment and then off to paint. So, I have to come up with a cool design. I have a few ideas rattling around in my head and think I'm going to settle on a white to violet dart scheme, but that's TBD.
It'll be a long time in the making before anything is ready to show, but I figured I'd kick it off with the new year!
Enjoy.
I took a drive out and met the guy. He was an older fellow and seemed to have a few prongs missing from his fork if you follow my meaning. The bike was there in a heap of parts but it didn't look broken. I examined it a bit further and it really looked solid. The guy admitted that he got confused and must have looked at a different bike. He had a collection of crap in his garage and perhaps it was something else that was broken. Needless to say I found a very early 87ish Yeti FRO, with the rare round top tube, Simplex dropouts and BMX style headtube. Frame included the Yeti fork, Salsa stem, 1/2 of a Bullseye crank and some assorted crappy parts. It looks to have been repainted by a rattle can at least three times but it's all there.
I took the frame home and did some work cleaning it up and decided that it was too nice to cut up for the C-26 project. So, without any immediate plans (it's not my exact size) I just shelved it for the time being.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago I had another lucky break and scored a stash of old CBR parts which would not only complete the bike but with the high rise stem actually enable me to ride it.
CBR Stem:
CBR Front Wheel:
CBR Rear Wheel:
CBR Ti bar:
I have a complete mint Shimano M730 XT grouppo as well as some Bullseye and Cook cranks so I think I can make a legit bike out of this thing.
First I need to send the frame to FTW for alignment and then off to paint. So, I have to come up with a cool design. I have a few ideas rattling around in my head and think I'm going to settle on a white to violet dart scheme, but that's TBD.
It'll be a long time in the making before anything is ready to show, but I figured I'd kick it off with the new year!
Enjoy.
