Monday, June 7, 2010

Area 51: field testing the yeti 575

Woooo boy, decisions decisions!  I demo'd the Yeti 575 on Sunday and once again my impressions were boy howdy!

575 is the King of the Downs, its 5.75" of travel fore and aft made for a buttery-smooth ride no matter the roughage.  I was constantly amazed at the size of the obstacles I could take head on, to feel only a fraction of the impact transmitted thru the suspension.  I mean I was just looking for outcrops to take on, gritting my teeth for the imagined impact, but the 575 just chewed them up, no worries mate.  Several of those would've left me with an OTB experience on my current ride, lemme tell you.  Towards the end of the ride I realized I no longer was looking to negotiate thru my home trail's familiar obstacles, rather I was relishing just riding right thru, dam the torpedos straight at em! 

All that prowess on the downhill comes with a bit of a compromise, depending how you ride.  I noticed the 575 wanted to sit into its travel w/o hesitation, took me a good bit to work out the RP23 shock settings to eliminate pedal bob.  Once set correctly, the uphills seemed much more in line with my current 4" 70d ride, comparable due to the 6-7# weight difference.  Engage the 575's propedal and I'd say it was as just as good an ascender as my xcountry/am hybrid.  

With one proviso: on a steady steep uphill, the 575 proved an equal climber.  Once you had to pop the wheel or face an extreme steep, I found the 575's front wanted to wander, forcing a few dabs where the ASR5 and my current ride did not.  I was left with the impression the 575 might force a few dabs on the more extreme slopes, but would not suffer any noticeable penalty on the majority of your climbs.  Not too shabby given the 575's ability top down.

up next: Great Yeti Shootout Results!
field testing the ASR5 lives here

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