The Piecemeal Yeti

I'm not positive on the history of this frame, and I'm still trying to research it. It appears to have been built by Yeti at their Agoura Hills location with tubes that were lying around. I'm not even sure it's actually a FRO.

What makes it odd?

First, I'll start with what's not odd about the frame. The frame is built with a 1 1/4" head tube. This would mean the frame was built sometime after mid to late 1990, when over-sized Evolution headsets where introduced. From there things get murky.

One of the more noticeable oddities is that the frame has two methods for attaching the front derailer - the later-style pulley, and the early-style chain stay attachment. I'm not sure why the bike has both; maybe it was built during the transition?

The next oddity is that the frame has mounts for four water bottles. As far as I know FROs came with two. Earlier YAKs came with more.

And the final visually noticeable oddity is that the frame has a press-in bottom bracket. Yeti never used a press-in bottom bracket. Either this frame had stripped bottom bracket threads and someone went through a lot of trouble to creatively fix it, or it's a one-off frame built for in-house use at Yeti.

I contacted Frank the Welder about the bike, and according to him based on tube wall thickness measurements, the seat tube on this bike is much older than the rest of the bike. So the seat tube is old, the down tube might be from a YAK, and it has a newer style top tube with older-style braze-ons... What to make of it all?

The frame is definitely a Yeti likely from 1989 or 1990, and was either a bike never intended to be sold, or else the frame builder was having a really bad day. I'm still asking around and seeing what other remember, but so far other than agreeing that this is an odd Yeti, no one seems to know exactly what it is.

- el