Yeti 575 - Review

REVIEWED

Yeti 575

WORDS Mike Kazimer
PHOTOS Colin Meagher

Yeti's 575 has been a mainstay in the Colorado based company's lineup for nearly a decade, undergoing various revisions over the years to keep up with changing standards. When it was first released it was something of an anomaly, a bike with nearly six inches of travel that was intended more for trail usage rather than freeriding or downhilling. Yeti was clearly ahead of the curve, anticipating the desire for a bike of this nature well before the trail and all-mountain categories grew to what they are today.

For 2014 the aluminum framed 575 bumps up to the 27.5” wheel size, along with getting a PressFit 30 bottom bracket and ISCG 05 tabs. Yeti offers the 575 in five different sizes, from XS to XL, and with four different build kit options. Prices start at $3500 USD, and our test bike, outfitted with Yeti's Race build kit and a Thomson dropper post, retails for $5000.






Frame Details

The 575's frame is constructed from hydroformed 7005 series aluminum, and features a redesigned rear triangle for 2014 in order to accommodate the larger wheel size. A tapered head tube, 12x142 rear end, ISCG 05 tabs – these features have become standard fare on trail and all-mountain bikes, and the 575 is no exception. There's a spot at the base of the seat tube for the housing of a stealth dropper post to exit, and internal routing in the down tube for the same housing. The rest of the cable routing is external, and located on the underside of the downtube. Yeti's interchangeable dropout design allows either a 135mm QR or 142x12 thru axle to be used.

Since Shimano doesn't make a PF30 crankset, Yeti uses a Praxis Works' conversion bottom bracket that works with the XT crankset's spindle dimensions. With this clever design one cup presses into the non-drive side, and the other threads in from the drive side. The cup threads into an expanding collet that applies uniform pressure to the bottom bracket shell, locking the entire assembly into place, and reducing the likelihood of the creaking that can sometimes go along with PressFit bottom brackets.


Suspension Design

The 575 uses a modified single pivot design, with an aluminum rocker mounted on a brace between the top tube and seat tube driving the rear shock. Double row sealed cartridge bearings are in place for the main pivot, and an expanding collet system is used to keep the main pivot bolt secure. Where many bikes using this style of suspension design have a pivot on the rear triangle, Yeti relies on the shaping and custom butting of the seat stays to provide enough compliance as the rear shock goes through its travel.

Specifications Price $5000 Travel 140mm Rear Shock Fox Float CTD Adjust K+ Fork Fox 34 150mm Headset Cane Creek Cassette Shimano 10spd Crankarms Shimano XT (24-38) Rear Derailleur Shimano XT 10spd Front Derailleur Shimano XT Shifter Pods Shimano XT 10spd Handlebar Easton Havoc Carbon Stem Thomson X4 Grips Yeti Lock-On Brakes Shimano XT Hubs DT Swiss 350xm Tires Maxxis High Roller II Seat Yeti Custom Seatpost Thomson Elite Dropper Compare to other All Mountain/Enduro/XC

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Riding the Yeti 575

We ran Yeti's 575 through the full gamut of trail styles, everything from smooth and fast singletrack to steep, rocky, technical descents.


Initial Setup / Climbing

As far as the overall fit goes, Yeti's bikes tend to have slightly longer top tube lengths, and the 575 is no exception, with a top tube length of 604mm and a reach of 414mm on a medium size frame. The size medium is spec'd with a 70mm Thomson stem, which isn't an outrageous length, but it would still be nice to see the bike equipped with something in the 50-60mm range, a length we'd imagine many riders will end up swapping to anyways. Even set up with a shorter stem there's still enough room at the front of the bike to find a comfortable position on long, drawn out slogs up steep climbs.

With a weight of 30 pounds without pedals, the 575 isn't lightest trail bike around, but it turned out to be a solid performer when it came to slower speed, technical climbs, scrambling and clawing its way up the most chopped up features we pointed it at. We spent time clambering up the sandstone rocks in Sedona, as well as grinding through mud and slippery roots in the Pacific Northwest, and in each setting the 575 held its own. The Shimano 2x10 drivetrain may deserve a bit of credit here, offering a slightly lower gear than you'd get with a 1x11 setup, and making it easier to find a low enough gear to keep the pedals spinning through the rough stuff. On smoother, more sustained and less committing uphills the yellow steed did feel a little sluggish, lacking the pep that encourages out of the saddle sprinting. Switching the rear shock into Trail mode and finding a comfortable cadence proved to be the ticket – the 575 rewards more of a relaxed, seated pedalling style.




Technical Terrain / Descending

The 27.5” wheeled version of the 575 has a head angle that's a degree slacker than the previous 26” version (67° vs. 68°), a geometry tweak that runs contrary to what we're used to seeing. Typically, the geometry trend has been that head angles get slightly steeper as wheel size increases, which is intended to counteract the slower steering that comes with a larger diameter wheel. The 575's slacker head angle came in handy on the steep rock faces we rolled the bike into, and the relaxed geometry combined with Shimano's powerful XT brakes made it possible to creep down moves in complete control, avoiding the pointy rocks and plants that inevitably lined the runouts.

One of our test loops in Sedona had a high speed, rocky section of singletrack that twisted and turned its way through a narrow canyon, the perfect spot to see how a bike handled technical bits of trail at full pace. Despite its longish wheelbase and chain stays, the 575 didn't have the stability we were looking for at these higher speeds. We experimented with different rear shock pressures, and eventually settled on running slightly more air pressure to achieve 20% sag, a change which helped keep the rear end from going through its travel too quickly, one of the reasons the bike seemed to be struggling in the rough. The rear suspension has a very linear feel, and although it never bottomed out harshly, it seemed more eager to go through its travel than we would have liked. Running less sag did help improve the bike's performance, but high speed, chunky trails still aren't exactly the 575's strong suit. When the speeds dropped the 575's manners improved, with very neutral handling that didn't require anything out of the ordinary to navigate it along the tight, root strewn trails that we took it on back in the Pacific Northwest.

The 575 did prove to be an adept jumper, and on nearly any size hit there wasn't any trouble getting airborne, and the bike's handling was very predictable, eliminating any surprises when taking off or landing, as long as there was a decent transition. On these smoother, jump filled trails (we're not huge fans of the term 'flow trail', but that's probably the most accurate description in this instance) the 575 capably dispatched whatever berms and features were tossed its way.




Component Check

• Thomson Elite Post – We had a positive experience with out initial test of Thomson's Elite Dropper post, and were glad to see that Yeti had added one to our 575's build kit. Unfortunately, the post arrived in need of service - it seemed to have lost some of its internal pressure, making it unable to rise or lower quickly enough to be useable. The Elite Dropper isn't user serviceable, so this is an issue that would require sending the post back to Thomson.

• Shimano XT drivetrain – We're still anxiously awaiting Shimano's answer to SRAM's 1x11 drivetrain. Until then, front derailleurs and two or three front chainrings are the name of the game with Shimano's offerings. The XT gruppo worked without any issues, and our only complaint is that the noise of the chain rattling against the front derailleur is even more noticeable now that we're becoming accustomed to running narrow-wide chainrings without a chain guide. Fingers crossed Shimano has something up their sleeves – it would be nice to see front derailleurs go the way of the Dodo.

• Shimano XT brakes – Shimano's XT stoppers are still our favorite brakes on the market right now. Excellent ergonomics, plenty of power, and easy to bleed, they're an ideal choice for just about any bike out there.




Pinkbike's take:

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Posted In:
Reviews and Tech Reviews Trail Bikes Yeti Yeti 575