Yeti SB120 Long Term

It feels like a lifetime ago when I received a pair of Yetis to review. It was not a lifetime, unless that life happened to be 13 months long. Because that is exactly how long it has been (give or take a couple days) since I wrote about my desire to dual-review the Yeti SB120 and SB140. The goal, back then, was to try use almost identical spec and wheelbase as an analytical fulcrum point and determine if, all else being relatively equal aside from wheel travel, I would lean toward the shorter or the longer travel end of the test. The litmus, as always, would be my own calcified biases. I asked “Am I really just an incorrigible old XC burnout, or would I, like so many other people, be better served with more travel and more capability in more terrain?”

And Then There Was One

If you want to get all the numbers and stats and detail photos, stroll down memory lane with the intro article. Meanwhile, time marches on.

Both bikes got ridden around the usual Monterey and Santa Cruz county spots, and then I was sucked into the vortex of selling my poison oak farm and moving everything I owned into storage except for the stuff I was taking to Mexico for the winter to hang out with my mom while she argued with breast cancer. So then they got ridden around in Baja for a bit. And then the 140 got stolen on November 17th, right after an absolutely transcendent Noble Canyon ride in a gentle rainstorm, along with my truck and all that other shit that I’ve written about too many times already. So that pretty much put an end to the comparison test. But I will say this: even then, I was opting to ride the SB120 more than the SB140. Much of that was terrain dependent, but there was also something else going on. Call me an incorrigible old XC burnout, but I kinda fell in love with the SB120.

Here, then, is my review of Yeti’s SB120. This is a bike model that has been around for a couple years now, and it has been soundly eclipsed by Yeti’s new ASR as the preferred XC race offering. It weighs about the same as the longer travel, more rowdy-capable SB140, and is, I fear, languishing in no-man’s land when it comes to the bikes that people gravitate toward buying. Probably causing some existential chin scratching at Yeti. Too mild mannered and casually comfortable for XC racing, not burly enough for the progression-uber-alles, huck-to-flat crowd. Since we are all into compartmentalizing everything, the SB120 now finds itself not fitting into any of the easy buckets we choose to define our ride experiences.

And yet… and yet, I adore this bike. I’ll even go so far as to say it is one of the most surprisingly awesome bikes that I’ve ridden, ever.

But… Why?

Okay, partly out of laziness and partly because it sort of doesn’t matter, I am going to refer anyone with spec-nerd needs to the initial breakdown, and will otherwise encapsulate everything right here in one sentence:

Yeti SB120 T2 Turq build with DT Swiss EXC1501 wheel upgrade, Fox Factory 34 130mm Fit4 fork, Float shock, SRAM mostly X01 Eagle drivetrain and G2 RSC brakes, about 8,200US (when you add the wheels onto the price) and weighing right about 30 pounds.

Okay, fine, here’s the geo chart. Mostly business as usual on that front, with a nice note of size specific chainstays complementing a head angle that is about par for current XC, and a degree or so steeper at the head and slacker at the effective seat angle than the current crop of rangy trail bikes. The wheelbase is trending long by XC standards, but a centimeter or two shorter than the current crop of similar travel trail rigs – going toe to toe with the Trek Top Fuel, Transition Spur and the new Specialized Epic Evo 8, but giving up 15mm between the axles to the Rocky Mountain Element and 35mm to the Transition Smuggler. Admittedly the Smuggler would be something of a freakish outlier in any of these comparisons, but it serves as an interesting data point in the evolutionary tale of short to mid travel trail bikes.

So, on paper (why do any of us even say that anymore?), we’re looking at a carbon fiber bike that is neither XC nor aggro-trail, costs a bunch, isn’t all that light, doesn’t have a ton of travel but has that Switch Infinity razzamatazz making what travel it does have feel plush and a little languid. This is a hard row to hoe, as the PR hacks would say, most of whom probably have no idea what a hoe even looks like. That’s the problem with PR and marketing – it is not something that is very often based in the practicalities and constraints of the real world.

Some Of The Parts Are Greater Than The Hole…

That’s how the old saying goes, right? Here’s where the SB120 quietly destroys the spec sheet and the bracketed nature of compartmentalized marketing.

Let’s start with the suspension. It has 120mm of travel that is so composed, so excellent at everything, up or down, that it can put more than a few 130mm bikes to shame, and maybe even some 140mm bikes I could name. The littlest SB has superb seated pedaling traction, manages to eat up whatever I happen to be pedaling over, and offers just the right amount of platform/anti-squat/whatever to still be clean and responsive when it is time to shift the body weight and lunge up some the chunky bits. And it’ll just roll out and pedal all day without bobbing around or feeling like a boat anchor. Unless you compare it to one of the flex-stay XC greyhounds. But ANY bike will suffer in that very particular accelerative comparison. Meanwhile, when measured against those same whippy greyhounds, in every other measure the SB120 feels like a magic carpet. It is smooth, efficient, and incredibly well-mannered in how it pedals and climbs.

Then you get to point it downhill. And here it flat out crushes any other XC or “downcountry” bike I have ridden. The closest comparison would be the Rocky Mountain Element I tested the summer before last. I really liked that bike. The SB120 makes it feel like a noodle. There’s a modest amount of progression designed into the SB120’s Switch Infinity leverage rate, and when combined with the smallish volume air can on the Factory Float rear shock it manages to be reactive and plush in small bumps, just the right kind of supportive in the mid-stroke, then ramps up at the end of stroke to deliver a ride that feels very well-mannered and “more” than the numbers indicate. It is very easy to forget there’s only 120mm of travel, and even when the limits of that travel are finally pushed against, the level of composure and stability that the bike possesses is super readable and predictable.

According to my shock pump, I ended up here after the first few rides and never bothered with it again (aside from pressure checks front and rear the two times I spooged grease into the linkage):

Front – 90psi, LSR 7 clicks out, HSR 4 clicks out

Rear – 215psi, rebound 6 clicks out

The carbon fiber frame, and the visually “more complex than it needs to be” Switch Infinity link that holds those two units of carbon fiber together, has just the right amount of stiffness to feel planted and keep the wheels pointed where they need to be – even when the suspension has finally been pushed past its happy place. It corners beautifully, holds a line like a champ, and responds to body English willingly and without any twitchy weirdness. If there’s a fly in the ointment, it would be that the SB120 isn’t super snappy in the way it does anything. A touch more effort is required to sprint, wheelie up or throw around than some of the lighter, more nervous competitors. That said, it is still a whole lot more responsive doing all that than the more gravity oriented bikes up in the 150mm travel range. That is a whole different kind of riding there, though, so again, this is not really a worthwhile comparison.

I’m struggling for words to describe the nature of this bike. “Gentlemanly” has come up a few times, which is probably a bit too gender weird. “Aristocratic” also has some class baggage (but hey, cue up the bougie dentist bike references if you feel the need). “Composed” is what springs to mind the most. Uphill, downhill, corner apex, rock garden, boulder roll, off-camber, wherever. Nothing really seems to bother it, and that, in turn, makes whoever is holding onto the handlebars feel that much more relaxed about whatever the trail may throw up next.

The Taste Test Conclusion

Remember when I was writing about flour tortillas a couple weeks ago? I was thinking about them while I was riding this bike. There I was, adapting to yet another new riding environment, not really thinking about how the bike was working at all, learning my way toward cleaning lines that had been messing with me a week or two earlier. Trusting that nothing shitty was going to happen, that no matter how many times I smashed my pedals into the rocks or got my helmet or shoulder hooked by Piñon branches, or some new trail devolved into a jumbled mess of head-sized rock as some local led me in way faster than I shoulda been going, having total confidence in the bike.

Metaphorically speaking, the SB120 never let my taco disintegrate. Not in Toro Park, not in Santa Cruz, not in La Paz, not in Noble Canyon and not in Buena Vista. For over a year now, this hard to categorize teal bike has held my taco intact, even when I probably shoulda grabbed a fork or just thrown all my food into a bowl to begin with. Three sets of tires, two sets of brake pads, two pairs of grips, some grease, a lot of chain lube. I still smile every time I sling a leg over it. It may not be the style or terrain specific tortilla that we think we want, but it just might be the general purpose tortilla that most of us need.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Yeah, that. It’s more than the travel numbers. It’s not to be dismissed by a glance at the geo chart. This is a surprisingly good bike, on so many levels, for so many riders, in so many places. Yeah, I know, this probably comes across as a blatant plug, but I already copped to the fact that I fell in love with the SB120 way back in the beginning of this thing. I also know that no matter how much smoke I blow up its seatpost, most people are still gonna look straight past it. Ah well. Their loss.