Yeti Cycles

SB5-C Enduro Complete Mountain Bike - 2015

Yeti's own Nick Ramey describes the SB5-C Enduro Complete Mountain Bike as "the perfect, one-quiver bike" in that it straddles the divide between gravity/enduro racing and the all-day trail bike. That's not surprising, given that Ramey is a Yeti man, but our own reviewer calls it a bike that, unlike the over-specialization being pushed across the industry, is just "really good for going mountain biking" across all terrains and disciplines. It's not strictly an enduro, trail, gravity, or cross-country bike. It's a mountain bike. This is because, like an enduro sled, "it only gets more comfortable the faster that you ride it," and its trail-bike tendencies mean you can ride it very, very fast.

To hit this enduro/trail sweet spot, the SB5-C Enduro blends two of Yeti's suspension philosophies in order to create a platform that climbs well, courtesy of its Switch Link heritage, without sacrificing the ability to take big hits, which it owes to its 303 pedigree. The result is the Switch Infinity.

The original Switch Link has been written to death in publications across the industry, so we'll keep this brief by touching on the differences between Link and Infinity. When you get past the 30% stroke while really pushing the Link's limits, the eccentric creates a momentary harshness under rapidly successive big hits. The Infinity replaces the Link's sinuous travel arc with a linear plane of motion, so it changes direction without getting caught in the minute dead spot that produces that harshness. Of course, 95% of all riders won't ever push the Switch Link hard enough to experience this dead spot, but Yeti (being Yeti) went ahead and fixed it, anyway.

Don't let the suspension's apparently complicated construction fool you into thinking this is a temperamental piece of tech-heavy maintenance nightmare. FOX has successfully tested production units to well over a million compression cycles while completely submerged in mud, a durability that's further proven by the three-year-old test units that are still in use today. Maintenance is simplified by the inclusion of easily-accessible grease ports, which do away with the need for time-consuming rebuilds.

Other than those two key changes, the suspension systems are similar. Like the Switch Link, the Switch Infinity slider travels upward under the first phase of compression, when the SB5 is settling into its sag point. As the rear end compresses deeper, the direction changes, and the slider travels down toward the bottom bracket shell to maintain a steady pedaling platform. Deep in the stroke, it works in conjunction with the upper pivot to produce a vertical wheel path that effortlessly flattens big, square-edged impacts. All SB5-C frames include the FOX CTD Adjust BV rear shock.

The SB5-C isn't just a floating suspension system. It's a bike, and its skeleton is the next evolution of Yeti’s proven carbon fiber chassis whose combination of geometry and materials further elides the distinction between enduro and trail. Frame weights are right around five pounds with shock, depending on size, which puts it on the lighter end of the trail bike spectrum, and it does so without sacrificing strength or stiffness. It owes its excellent tracking through rough terrain to a tapered head tube, a rear thru-axle, and a geometry as long and low as a blockbuster preview's vocal register. The lightweight carbon fiber chassis is stiff and durable and the forward-oriented seatpost keeps you over the pedals for more responsive hammering up hills.

As SB stands for Super Bike, Yeti has sort of painted itself into a corner. The SB5-C can't be spec'd with subpar kit and still expect to be taken seriously with that name. The aim for the SB5-C Enduro is, appropriately, endurance, with a drivetrain comprising SRAM's workhorse X-7 and X-9 lines, rounded off with a Shimano Deore front derailleur. The fork is a FOX 34 Float CTD Fit with 150 millimeters of travel and the seatpost is a Race Face Ride, and the frame is compatible with stealth and non-stealth dropper routing options. A Cane Creek headset links to Race Face stem and bars, and the DT Swiss M1900 wheelset comes stock wrapped in Maxxis tires.

The Yeti SB5-C Enduro Complete Mountain Bike is available in five sizes ranging from X-Small to X-Large in the colors Raw and Turquoise.