New for 2023, the Yeti Cycles SB family - the 120, 140, and 160 - have been given a host of new tech and features to reinvigorate the SB lineup as one worth considering when the time comes to make that next bike purchase. “Much of what you’ll see when you look at the bike is the same, and that was very intentional,” Peter Zawistowski, Yeti’s director of engineering told us. Zawistowski continues, “the new SB is about refinement, improving ride experience and durability of the complete system.” If the devil is in the details, then Beelzebub just got three new buddies, because the new Yeti SB120, SB140 and SB160 bikes will have you pulling out a magnifying glass to examine all the subtleties found within. Let us dive into those in this installment of our Dissected series.
As with all of our Dissected Features, this is not intended to be a long term review or endorsement of a product but is instead a chance for our viewers and readers to get a deep dive look into some of the newest tech and products in the mountain bike space. We thank Yeti for the opportunity to create this feature and getting you some valuable beta on these new offerings.
For the full write-up, visit the site here:
theloamwolf.com/2022/11/17/th...
THE WOLF’S FIRST IMPRESSION
As with all our Dissected Features, our first ride review is not our official long-term opinion, but instead our first impressions after spending several days riding and filming the bikes for this launch-focused feature. Across the board all four testers were very impressed with the Yeti bikes thus far. It did take some of the bikes a bit longer to get dialed in, as we found the suspension really likes to be in a tight range for setup. For example, the SB160 calls for 19.5mm of sag and being just a little too under sprung resulted in a stiff and harsher ride. By increasing compression a few clicks and resetting our air pressure to hit about 19 - 19.5mm of sag, the bike instantly felt better - smoother and more composed. It’s still not a Cadillac, but we reckon Yeti riders are already aware of how these bikes ride. They ride more like race machines than plow-horses.
Speaking of racing, each of these bikes love to go fast. All of our riders commented on how silent and scary fast the bikes are, both pedaling and when pointed downhill. The bikes accelerate effortlessly and carry momentum well over a wide range of terrain. That comes without isolating the bike to a race-only scenario, and while they all certainly feel like they’d hold their own between the tape, they’ve also been a pleasure to ride in a more casual setting. The stack height certainly feels towards the race-focused low front end, which we’re typically not such a fan of, so we’ll be looking to add a higher rise bar in the future to bring things up to a more comfortable height.
The somewhat unique suspension feel of the Switch Infinity platform on the 2023 Yeti SB bikes is a talking point. It feels to be somewhere between a DW-Link and well-tuned VPP in terms of platform, pedaling efficiency and compliance. It’s unique and so far, we like it in most conditions. As we mentioned though, there does seem to be a relatively narrow window of tuning where it feels the best. We’ll be interested to experiment some more with the setup to figure out if this is definitely the case and if there’s more performance there to unlock.
Our crew is excited to put more miles on the bikes during this winter. We’ve always been skeptical of the Switch Infinity system from a durability standpoint and it seems like this winter will give us all the crappy conditions we’ll need to find out how it holds up. So far we’ve been very pleased with all of the bikes, and with a bit more time to tweak and tune the cockpit and suspension set up, we’re sure that we won’t be struggling to find reasons to take these bikes out for test rides any chance we get. It seems Yeti has succeeded after our initial rides and we look forward to updating you in a couple of months.
Visit Yeticycles.com to learn more
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