Yeti Ultimate

[gtturbo]

I've been lucky to have had quite a lot of desirable bikes over the years but the one I always wanted as a youngster was a Yeti Ultimate. Early 90s I was riding a Cannondale hardtail and then Fat Chance tricked out with Grafton brakes, cranks etc but when out riding around Henley way I would occasionally bump into a guy on a Yeti and thought that was just the coolest.

So before Christmas I saw this advertised in various places. To be honest at the time I didn't have the sort of money to drop on it. However I had a bit of a result in January and enquired if it was still available. It seems there was a bit of a queue but people dropped out and all of a sudden I was in the hot seat and off to Kent with a pocket full of cash.

The chap I got it from originally purchased the bike from Cycleland. He told me he came out the bomb hole at Malvern a bit hot and broke the original frame. This frame was the replacement from Cycleland.

So here it is as I got it.



I've been collecting up some parts and now the Vit-T is done I am in a position to start putting this together how I want it. I try to limit myself to one project at a time just so things dont drag on. Its going to be ridden so don't expect some immaculate wall hanger.

So far Ive only changed one part. Normally I'm a Flite guy but there was only 1 saddle for this in my opinion.



Ultimately, no pun intended, I think I would like forks and stem from FTW. I've emailed to enquire but no reply as yet. So for the time being I will keep the Manitous and Atac. I would also like Bullseye cranks as to me those fit hand in hand with an Ultimate but I will have to keep an eye out for some sensibly priced ones as I have a bit of form with snapping them so don't want to spend crazy money.

I plan to get it stripped down in the next few days, get it cleaned, and then the new headset fitted and we can start building it back up again. Will update this thread as I go.

 

[Once A Hero]

Welcome to the club
Look forward to seeing how you get on with it

 

[gtturbo]

I started to get some of the parts together for this. Ringles are going to need a trip to the anodisers and I've got some Critical Racing cantis to get done as well. Love it or hate it there will be some purple anodised parts as that's how I would have built it back in the day. The previous owner had already made a start with purple jockeys and front mech roller. It won't however have as much as my al-mega which was purposely done to be ott.

Headset I think the CK is winning. Technically of course it should be a no logo but as mentioned above I'm going to use this thing, a lot hopefully, so I would rather just fit new and be done with it.

Brake levers not so sure. The Kooka's are nice but possibly a bit too new for this so the SS5's or even the XT's currently fitted may win out.

Derailleurs only 1 choice for me and that's XT II. XTR in my head just wouldn't look right. Currently it has a long cage rear mech fitted but I will swap that out for a short cage simply because they just look better in my book.

I keep lusting after some Bullseye cranks but my numbers didn't come up Tuesday night. I do already have a set on my Pace but personally I don't like robbing bits off one bike for another. I need to see if my heart or my head wins on that one and if the Cook Bros stay or not.

Finally no matter how you look at it this ain't a light bike. So I will add plenty of ti and alloy bolts to see if we can keep the heft down a bit at least. 25lbs would be good I'm thinking but I may struggle to get near there I think.

 

[Yetichaser]

Welcome to the club
Look forward to seeing how you get on with it

Welcome to the club. Another Cycleland Ultimate

 

[Once A Hero]

@gtturbo Having just bought some bottle cage bolts for mine, I looked back at this one and noticed yours has two sets of cage bolts on the down tube - one more than mine does, but does is still have another set on the underside of the lower down tube too? I'm guessing the extra set on the main down tube is due to the frame size, do you know what size it is?

 

[gtturbo]

@gtturbo Having just bought some bottle cage bolts for mine, I looked back at this one and noticed yours has two sets of cage bolts on the down tube - one more than mine does, but does is still have another set on the underside of the lower down tube too? I'm guessing the extra set on the main down tube is due to the frame size, do you know what size it is?

@Once A Hero Yes it has 3 sets of bottle bosses in total so looks like because of the size, 20" in Yeti sizing I believe, they sneaked in an extra set. I will just run one cage I think. 3 will look a bit ott and I can't afford 2 more Ringle cages anyway

Interestingly I think it was one of your Yeti threads where you had issues with fitting different types of 26.8 seatposts. This seems to have the same problem so I can only assume the tolerances must be super tight. XT and Tioga are fine but Syncros only goes in a small amount.

 

[Once A Hero]

@Once A Hero Yes it has 3 sets of bottle bosses in total so looks like because of the size, 20" in Yeti sizing I believe, they sneaked in an extra set. I will just run one cage I think. 3 will look a bit ott and I can't afford 2 more Ringle cages anyway

Interestingly I think it was one of your Yeti threads where you had issues with fitting different types of 26.8 seatposts. This seems to have the same problem so I can only assume the tolerances must be super tight. XT and Tioga are fine but Syncros only goes in a small amount.

Yes I ran in to some challenges when trying to install a supposedly correctly size seatpost on my Ultimate! Makes you wonder what is an acceptable tolerance when it comes to tube diameters doesn't it!?
My FRO came with an XT post but I've yet to try any others - fingers crossed I can install the one I want to use.

 

[gtturbo]

Looks like 25lbs may be a tad optimistic. Here is what it currently weighs before I start stripping it down.

 

[Once A Hero]

I think you’ll get reasonably close depending on the parts you use, maybe in to a weight starting with 25 could be achieved.
Mines at 26.9ish but by no means has the lightest parts fitted, 36H rims (so lots of spokes), lots of steel parts, there’s definitely room for improvement.

 

[gtturbo]

Looks like my Roberts is going to be inheriting some Cook Bros cranks

Thanks to @bower for selling me a set of Bullseyes. To my mind Bullseyes just fit hand in hand with these old Yeti's. Now to sort out what I'm going to do bb wise.