Dirt

Yeti Cycles is a high-end mountain bike manufacturer founded in 1985 by mountain bike racer and designer John Parker. The company was sold in 1995 to Schwinn, who in turn sold the name to Volant in 1999, and for a number of years it seemed that Yeti might be heading towards collapse.

However, the company was brought back from the brink of oblivion in 2001 by a group of mountain bikers based in Golden, Colorado, including long-time Yeti boss Chris Conroy, and has since gone from strength to strength.

The current Yeti range features a series of all-mountain, XC, gravity and trail models. The gravity model is called the 303 World Cup, and is a pure race machine, born and bred on the World Cup circuit with input from the Yeti factory team. There are four all-mountain models, including the 575, SB66, SB66 Comp, and top-of-the-range 6 lb, six-inch-travel SB66 Carbon.

In early 2014 it was announced that Yeti would not be contesting the UCI World Cup downhill series that year – instead Jared Graves and Richie Rude would focus solely on the Enduro World Series. Scottish shredder Hannah Barnes was also confirmed as a team rider for Yeti UK, having experienced great success over the previous 12 months in the big mountain Megavalanche and Trans Savoie competitions as well as rounds of the Enduro World Series.