Yeti LT Ride Review - The Most Customizable Yeti Ever [Video]

Words, Photos & Video by Jared Erickson

Yeti has been creating legendary bikes for decades, and this latest creation is no different. The all new Yeti LT hosts a full suite of firsts for Yeti's pedal powered bikes as well as a shift to their SixFinity suspension platform, yet it retains that essential Yeti DNA that we know and love. Read on for all the details!

Frame Highlights & Geometry

This new bike from Yeti features a good handful of things that we have been looking forward to seeing from the brand. This includes in-frame storage, an MX flip chip as well as a slack MX chip, swappable dropouts to lengthen the chainstays +10mm, a ZS 44/56 headset that allows the use of reach and angle adjust headsets, adjustable leverage rate chips, an accessory mount, updated robust chainslap protection & more. We've seen several of these features on their eMTBs over the last few years, but this is the first time we're seeing many of these features trickle down to their pedal powered bikes. 

Of course the biggest change that's come to the LT is the utilization of the SixFinity suspension platform on a non motorized Yeti - the first time we saw this platform was when the 160E debuted. When that bike was released, the writing was sort of on the wall that the end of Switch Infinity was imminent: we had a feeling that this day would come where we would see SixFinity on a pedal powered machine. This six bar suspension design allows the engineers at Yeti to further fine tune various kinematic variables, and it ultimately offers a lot of positive characteristics in a suspension platform that we'll get more into when we discuss how it rides.

The in-frame storage comes with a nicely constructed Yeti bag that has a lightweight TPU tube inside of it, and the storage door is well executed. During our testing, the storage door and bag remained nicely in place despite riding the roughest trails we have to offer, and didn't make a ruckus either. The adjustable dropouts and flip chips are also nicely engineered, and took just a few moments to swap everything over and fully transform how the bike rides. 

Another one of the exciting new features on the LT is certainly the ability to swap from 29/29 to MX with just a flip chip and of course swapping out the rear wheel. You simply flip the existing chip around to achieve your desired setup, and to slacken the bike by a half a degree within the MX configuration you can swap the flip chip for the even slacker chip - you can see the flip chip in the image below where the seatstay attaches to the rocker link: there's a small white dot on the inside of the seatstay to indicate the flip chip position.

One of the features that's been around on their eMTBs for years now that's just making its way to the LT is the leverage rate adjustability chip, allowing you to tailor how progressive you want the suspension to feel. Essentially this will allow you to have either a more linear setup that will give the bike a ground hugging and planted feel, versus a more progressive, poppy and playful feel. 

All of these new features culminate in a bike that is as customizable and feature rich as you could possibly hope for. From customizing the geometry to adjusting the kinematics via leverage rate adjustability and swapping out different rear wheels, you can truly transform how the bike rides and tailor it to your preferences as a rider. All of these options really allow you to tinker to your hearts content and have fun testing out all of the various setups you can come up with.

Compared to the outgoing SB160 and SB165, the geometry on the LT isn't drastically different when it comes to things like reach, head angle and stack, however the chainstays have been lengthened to add some stability and front end grip, and the wheelbase gets longer as a result. We also see a little more size specific geometry than in the past, with 3mm increments in chainstay length as opposed to the 2mm increments from the previous models. 

Ride Impressions

Sort of how I eluded to earlier, the highlight of this bike is that you can tailor the ridefeel to your preferences in various ways. I first rode the bike in the 29/29, +10mm chainstay configuration and it was incredibly stable and eager to pick up and carry speed on technical terrain, yet it lacked the sort of liveliness that I enjoy in a bike. I actually had a little more of a hard time getting along with it, because it felt so incredibly long - and it was. With the +10mm dropouts installed on our size Large test bike, the chainstays come out to a whopping 465mm, nearly 30mm longer than my SB165! That's far from a minor geometry tweak.

Once I swapped out the long dropouts for the standard +0mm dropouts, I really started to feel the bike come alive. It was much more willing to let its hair down and allow its playful side to come out, and once I swapped out the rear wheel for the 27.5 wheel that effect was amplified. The bike was eager and willing to get into corners, have some fun in the air, yet it was still ready to charge technical sections of trail and have fun doing it. 

The SixFinity platform is one of the most tailorable suspension platforms available on a mountain bike today, and straight out of the box it's extremely impressive. It's extremely supportive while climbing and pedaling with zero pedal bob, and offers tons of rear wheel traction when it comes to steep, loose and technical climbs. Yetis have always been some of the best pedaling bikes in my opinion and SixFinity absolutely lives up to that reputation. Just by setting up the bike to Yeti's recommendations, I was able to get pretty comfortable on the bike - Yeti has a bike setup calculator that I've been using for years and it works quite well to get you to a good starting place when it comes to bike setup. 

One of the most challenging aspects of designing a suspension platform is to make it well rounded - making it pedal well and descend even better is quite a challenge. Nearly every platform has its limitations and any tweak you make to improve one aspect is going to have an opposite effect for another. It's the primary reason that various suspension designs exist, to further refine and tune a platform to create a Goldilocks platform that does everything well. SixFinity takes this Goldilocks thing seriously, and even within this well rounded platform you can tailor it to be even more linear or even more progressive - whichever suits your style. It's supple off the top, supportive, and bottomless. Bust out your mountain bike buzzword bingo card.

I've only got a handful of rides on the LT at this point, but so far my favorite setup has been with the standard chainstay length and 27.5 rear wheel. I haven't had the chance to play around with the progressive shock chip settings as much as I'd hoped, but so far in the middle position it's been a well rounded bike that descends with confidence, isn't afraid to have a little fun, and is extremely capable on technical terrain. I'm looking forward to tinkering with the various settings and really seeing what this bike is capable of. 

Final Thoughts

The Yeti LT has brought a welcomed suite of updates and features to a Yeti that we've been after for some time, and we're stoked to see how it's all been packaged together in one seriously impressive bike. It goes up and down like Yetis we know and love, with a refined suspension package that we've thoroughly enjoyed ever since it debuted on the 160E nearly 5 years ago. You can tinker and customize it to great lengths, and it's been properly engineered. We're looking forward to putting a lot of time on this bike and it's certainly set the bar for the next generation of Yetis to come.