Bling Builds: Getting a Yeti Ultimate up and running again

The Yeti Ultimate started out as Mountain Bike Action's attempt to build what they thought was the ultimate mountain bike, and that meant tackling the common shortcomings of contemporary bikes.  The year was 1988, and some of the big issues at that time were chainsuck, poor tire clearance, and long chainstays, so MBA set out to solve all by using elevated chainstays.  After Yeti put the frame together for MBA, they made it a stock model, which went on to become their most popular frame by 1990.  And while it looks a bit unusual now, anyone who can remember the time around 1988-91 or so will recall that it was in good company: the Nishiki Alien, Mantis Valkyrie, and Trimble Carbon Cross among the most memorable of the bikes with elevated chainstays; but still, this bike was one of the first, and it had its own special little tidbits that set it apart.

1. One of these innovative details was the 1.25" Fisher Evolution threaded headset, which was a standard that never really gained widespread traction.  These days, if you need to swap your fork and you have one of these headsets, your options are pretty much limited to finding an old fork...unless you get a Chris King Devolution headset!  This is a headset that is designed for cases where you have a headtube that's designed for a larger steerer, and you want to go down a size.  In this case, the rider used the 1.25" Devolution headset to put a fork with a standard 125" threadless steerer tube on his bike. 

Beyond the headset, this bike is a rad mix of older parts, and some that are still around today like the Paul Motolite brakes and Love Levers.  It's a perfect example of one of the reasons that we like working with companies like Chris King, Phil Wood, White Industries, and Paul: without a product like the Devolution headset, this bike might not still be rolling.  The fact is that Chris King can't expect to sell very many of those headsets in a given year, but because they do make them, rad bikes like this can still get their tires dirty!  

We love helping customers keep their classic bikes riding great, and we've got a lot of parts that can help with just that type of thing: from bottom brackets for very unusual thread pitches, to headsets to fit just about every standard, chances are that if you've got an old bike that needs odd parts, we can get it rolling!  

And remember that whether your bike is old or new, we want to see how you're using the parts you get from us!  We spend a lot of time working on our own bikes, and we want to see what you're working on too!