The Yeti ASR has been a staple in the Colorado brand's lineup for a very long time. While absent for the past few years, the new Yeti ASR is back with a statement to make. The new ASR picks up where the brand left off with the previous ASR, a fast yet capable XC bike that motivates you to pedal harder and is a smooth operator on the descents. With 120mm of front travel and 115mm of rear travel, it sits perfectly in the new style of cross-country race bikes, a category that has been growing for a long time. As it's been said way too many times, cross-country race courses have gotten increasingly aggressive with gap jumps, 3+ ft tall drops, and chunky rock gardens, making XC bikes need more than 100mm of travel and slacker head tube angles than 68 degrees as they have been. There are also the more niche races like Moab Rocks and Downieville Classic that teeter on this cross-country style with a twist of real single-track riding, two events that I personally like to do.

The previous ASR was way ahead of its time. When it came out, the cross-country crowd was not running dropper posts, many were still on hardtails, and bikes did not have 120mm forks. Yeti has always been pushing bikes that they want to ride, and a 100mm cross-country bike with a rigid post is fast on an old school race course, but not very fun to ride in the real mountains of Colorado or even California. As the industry has caught up, Yeti released the new ASR at a great time, and did they deliver.

For me, I chose to build an ASR for this year for some events that require a light and efficient bike yet can handle some serious singletrack riding. The brand's downhill DNA really shines in how capable this bike is for being such a light and XC-focused package. I have an initial ride review to share all of my first thoughts when I had the stock bike that Yeti sent. Since then, I was lucky enough to get the top-of-the-line Yeti ASR T5 equipped with RockShox Flight Attendant, SRAM XXSL Drivetrain, and DT Swiss XRC 1200 wheels. Having spent 3+ months on this bike and riding events like Moab Rocks, The Great Descent, and heading to Downieville in a few weeks, I have a great feel for this bike, have made some unique part choices, and tested just about every Maxxis tire combo possible. Below are all the details and specs any bike nerd would like to know about my Yeti ASR.

At 5’10”, I fit pretty nicely on the size large ASR frame. With a 465mm reach on the size large, it's just a touch shorter than some of my last bikes, but for an XC bike that feels good. I was able to run a slightly longer stem on it to put me over the front and into a good climbing position that doesn't hinder the downhill performance. As mentioned before, I have a full review on all the little details of the ASR, so I'll stay light here and just go over a few frame highlights and things I really like. It's light, like really light. I have the Ultimate version, which forgoes the rear derailleur and dropper cable routing and port. This saves weight as they don't have to reinforce holes in the carbon on both the front triangle as well as the rear chainstay. The paint is also light and the only way you can get this colorway. There is also room for two water bottles in the frame, which for an XC bike is almost a must these days.

Another awesome detail that I think contributes to how well it rides is the size-specific chainstays and the fact that the large has a 439mm chainstay. It's a bit longer than most XC bikes out there. The front-to-rear balance is amazing on this bike, and I attribute a lot of that to the geometry choices and the slightly longer chainstay. The ASR is also super quiet thanks to the frame protection, SRAM Transmission, and cable routing. The cable routing ports can tighten down, keeping the cables taut without rattle. Praise the normal headset as well. Not only do the cables not run through the headset, but Yeti chose to stick with a very standard IS41/IS52 headset on this bike. This means there are a ton of options to use, nothing proprietary, and for me, I can get the Cane Creek Slamset to lower my stem that little bit more.

The stock wheels on the ASR T5 build are the new DT Swiss XRC 1200s, the Swiss brand's newest and most high-end cross-country wheelset. The new wheels feature a DT Swiss 180 EXP straight pull hub laced to an all-new 30mm internal carbon rim with 24 of the new Revolite spokes per wheel. At a very low weight of 1302g, the wheels are very competitive in the market with arguably the best, most reliable hub available. I was lucky enough to have these for some time before they were officially released in June of 2024. We now have a full article on this wheel with my ride impressions, along with the rest of the DT Swiss 1200 wheel lineup. There's no doubt that I am a major fan of what DT Swiss does; their straightforward approach and quality products make them my top choice for hubs. When I can also get a complete wheelset that matches all my needs, it's a win-win.

Tires, tires, tires. There seems to be a huge focus these days on tires in the cross-country and even the gravel world, which funny enough, seem to keep getting closer and closer. For me, I put most of my faith in Maxxis tires for all my bikes, especially the cross-country tread patterns. I also have a full write-up on all the Maxxis tire testing I did this year, riding every cross-country tire from an Aspen to a Forekaster, including the new Aspen ST and Team Spec 170TPI casing. After all this testing, I found that I really like a few tires for a bike like this: the Aspen 2.4 (which surprised me a lot), the classic Ikon 2.35, and the Rekon 2.4. These three tires I found to be very consistent. For Moab Rocks, I chose to race with the Aspen 2.4 EXO tires front and rear with Tubolite inserts. The slick rock trails and big volume tires provide lots of grip while rolling extremely fast. For later in the year and coming into Downieville Classic, I am riding the Maxxis Rekon 2.4 front with the Maxxis Ikon 2.35 rear, both in normal EXO casing, still using Tubolite inserts front and rear. I found that using these Tubolite inserts allowed me to run lower pressure in the tires, giving me the most amount of grip for a light tread pattern. I just did The Great Descent on this tire setup and did not have any issues over 12k of descending and 5.5k of climbing on backcountry trails. A solid test for Downieville.

The drivetrain is pretty simple now. With SRAM Eagle XXSL Transmission just coming out, it is the lightest and best option for this bike. With a direct mount rear derailleur, thanks to the frame spec of the SRAM UDH, the shifting is smooth, fast, and the best I have ever ridden. With a 10-52t rear cassette and a 34t chainring, I have enough climbing gears while never topping out on a downhill. For the Flight Attendant system to work, you need either a crank sensor or a power meter, and luckily this bike came with a power meter. I've never had one before and I'm not totally sure I understand training with power, but it's a cool data point to see. I also really like the new 2nd and 3rd gears in this new cassette, evening out the gaps a bit more. I find myself needing the 52t less and can spend more time in those other gears, especially with the 34t ring. The cranks are the stock XXSL cranks, but I have chosen to ride a 165mm crankset. I started using a 165mm crank on my pedal bike last year and loved it. Fewer crank strikes, smoother pedal cadence, and it also keeps my hip flexors more open, which has been a spot of fatigue for me in the past.

New for me is the use of Ceramic Speed components on this build, as Ceramic Speed make bearings for industry, motorsports and most notably space applications. Ceramic Speed spec’d out this bike with a Bottom Bracket and the OSPW pulley wheel system for T-type rear derailleurs, along with some UFO chain drip wax. For a race bike of this caliber, it makes sense to really go full tilt with every last detail, the frictionless spinning of the bottom bracket is something to make you smile. Just a light tap and you can see how free-moving the bearings really are, and then the OSPW, with oversized pulley wheels and ceramic internals, these also spin so freely and save some watts as well. Ceramic Speed said this setup can save 5 watts over a fast stock system, and possibly more if your bearings are not as fresh as well, but the real winner is the prolonged life of your drivetrain and durability with this system.

It's nice that the ASR has a built-in chainguide. While I didn't run one on my Downieville bike last year with SRAM XXSL Transmission, the light and built-in one doesn't hurt to have on!

Over the past few years, there have been fewer and fewer special touches needed. Even the new SRAM direct mount rear derailleur takes care of some tricks that I used to do to other rear derailleurs. One really cool special touch is the use of the SRAM wireless blips. These little buttons can basically go anywhere you have a mostly flat surface to attach them to. After seeing my boy Lachy on Instagram glue them under his brake levers, I went ahead and copied him. As I mentioned, I rest my hands on top of the bars and drape my fingers over the brake lever body, so putting a left and right shifter under the brake lever only made sense so I can shift while sitting in this position.

Otherwise, I don't need to do much now, but I always like to be prepared, especially when I get out on those backcountry rides. I always have a titanium Wolf Tooth Morse Cage bottle cage on there. It's simple, I have never lost a bottle, and it has a ton of mounting spots, so you can manipulate where the cage is mounted. This is helpful on so many full-suspension bikes. I slam this cage as low as it can go, and I even dremel off a little bit of the mount so I can push it as far down in the frame as possible to run an extra-large 26oz bottle if I need. The new ASR has two in-frame water bottle mounts, which is extremely useful for big rides and races—more storage even if you don’t need it, it’s nice to have. Under the bottle cage is a mount for the DynaPlug Carbon Racer plug tool. While I don't always have the carbon plug tool on the bike (I ride with a normal DynaPlug and Stan’s Dart in my ride wallet), I keep the mount there for when I want to go light and always have two plugs when needed. In addition I have a custom made plug from a friend at SRAM, it fits 1 Dyna Plug in the fork axle, usefull for 1 quick plug and is just extremly trick, so thanks Myles! Lastly, I have a Worldwide Cyclery Occam strap holding a spare Tubolito tube, a tire patch, a CO2 head, and some zip ties all wrapped in a small pouch from my Trail One Rockville stem (bags are great to repurpose like this). A little added rubber mastic tape around the rear tire and chain areas prevents both scratches and noise, and the bike is good to go. Quiet, fast, capable, fun, and easy on the eyes to top it off.

It has been some years since Yeti made the ASR, and a lot has changed. Would the new ASR work as well as other bikes on the market that use the flex stay single pivot design? I was lucky enough to get this bike early as a demo with a more stock build, and I did my first impressions when the bike was released. Since then, I have had much more time on this bike, of course with my own touches and the RockShox Flight Attendant system.

For my ASR, I aim to have a bike that can climb without much compromise but also be able to handle some rough downhills. I mentioned that I've been experimenting with lower shock and tire pressure to get traction and full travel to really maximize this setup. So far, that has been a major success for me. I can really push this bike to the limit and ride it with people on trail bikes while having less travel and less tire tread. Again, the Flight Attendant really helps with this type of setup. I did run it on my previous Ranger, but it's more work having to reach down and flick your suspension from Open, Pedal, or Lock while the Flight Attendant does that automatically. I found that the ASR rear travel is very well tuned. Yeti even says this: it's meant to use full travel to really take advantage of every millimeter of travel. This lends this bike amazing traction pretty much everywhere. While climbing, you have rear wheel traction when it's rough or technical, and then you put it in Pedal or Lock when it's a bit smoother. The rear end is quite active in the Open setting, so I do think this bike performs best with a lockout system.

Moving onto traction, the Maxxis Rekon and Ikon tire combo with inserts has been a great combination of fast rolling with enough front-end traction so I can really push the descents. Paired with the DT Swiss XRC 1200 wheelset, it's both lightweight and durable. The rims have a great balance between stiffness and ride quality, which I found to be pretty close to the Zipp 1Zero HiTop wheels I tested last year. I have another set, so I will be doing some more back-to-back comparisons, but so far the DT Swiss XRC 1200’s land right in the middle between the ultra-stiff Roval Control SL and the very compliant and smooth Berd Hawk 30’s. They have the best and fastest hub out of them all (Roval Control SL uses 180 internals but seems to blow through bearings much faster).

The acceleration of this bike really makes you want to get on the pedals and carry your speed. Just cruising around, I find myself having fun going fast up and down hills. Being only 24.5 lbs, it's extremely light, further accentuating this feeling. Downhill, I'd say this bike is the best single pivot flex stay bike I have ridden. I am often surprised by how hard I can push this bike downhill. The geometry, I think, has a bit to do with that as the rear end is a touch longer than most other bikes in this category, giving you that added stability. The front-to-rear balance with the 120mm Sid up front is enough to get yourself in trouble when you forget you are still on an XC bike. Because of that, I don't want to compromise on brakes too much. The 4-piston brakes and 180mm thicker rotors really help control this bike as it is so damn easy to carry speed. More speed than you expect, and with the stock 2-piston brakes and 160mm rear rotor, I found myself having that "oh shit" moment where you are not sure if you will slow down for the upcoming feature or obstacle.

After being on this bike for 4 months, I really think this overall setup is the best for a modern XC race machine. It can climb with the best and also go downhill much faster than the numbers on paper might suggest. This new breed of XC bikes in the 115-120mm travel range is a blast to ride, and I can't wait to see what I can do with this bike at The Downieville Classic coming up soon.