Remember the Bike You Always Wanted?

The Yeti ARC was the bike that always seemed to win first place at every NORBA racing event in the early '90s when I first started mountain biking. Every issue of Mountain Bike Action showed another rider winning a race while riding a Yeti.

The first time I saw in person was the summer of 1993. Tod, a friend of mine, and I drove from Washington, DC, (where I was living at the time) to Hanover, KS, (Tod's hometown) where we spent most of a week. We left Kansas and headed to Houston, TX, to visit his sister, then back to DC via New Orleans. Somewhere during that trip we visited a bike shop that had an ARC for sale. It was painted in the traditional race colors: turquoise and yellow. It was beautiful. From that point on, I always wanted one.

Skip forward a few years... It's early 2000, and I've just recently discovered the newest way to find the coolest bike parts: eBay. I often peruse the eBay bike listings to see what's for sale. In February of 2000 I see what I've been looking for; a Yeti ARC is for sale. It's a '98 model, not quite as cool as an early model, but it's painted in my favorite turquoise and yellow paint scheme, it's my size, and it's in good condition. Let the bidding begin!

If you've never heard of Yeti bicycles, let me give you with a brief history. In 1985 John Parker started building frames in southern California. He called his company Yeti. In 1991 he and the company moved to Durrango, CO, where the frames they built became legendary for racing. Yeti pioneered the use of Easton aluminum frames, and the ARC (Advanced Racing Compound) was the output of a joint development effort. In 1995 Schwinn Bicycles purchased Yeti, operated them as a seperate division for several years, and then sold Yeti in 1999. My 1998 frame was build in Durrango during the Schwinn years. Eventually the factory was moved to Golden, CO, where it is today. Although Yeti is still a strong brand and builds great bikes, their glory days of Yeti will always be in Durrango. Yeti has a more detailed history on their site.

The ARC truly is a racer's frame. It climbs well, handles twisty single track well, and is next to impossible to knock off line on a descent. It's a well mannered hardtail that handles any trail condition that you throw at it, under one condition: you need to be going fast. The ARC does not handle nearly as well at low speeds. It's not a bike to use to ride in slow technical situations. The same great characteristics that keeps it moving in a straight line downhill does the same in technical situations, and it can be hard to make the bike go where you want it. As a result I preferred my Bontrager as an all around hardtail, and when I needed parts to build up my Blur the ARC was striped for parts.

The Yeti started life with me as a bare frame, became a 24 pound hardtail, striped to a frame again, then became a single speed, and as of today is back to being built as a full "geared" bike. Hopefully it was stay "as is" for a while.

- el