You’ve got to hand it to Yeti. For a relatively small, and certainly boutique, brand they never rest on their laurels. They’re constantly refining and innovating, looking for ways to be more relevant and desirable.
The SB75 is no surprise, rather it’s a perfect evolution. The Switch Technology debuted a couple of years ago with the SB66 finds a new home, nesting happily with a set of 27.5″ wheels, all wrapped up in that progressive geometry that Yeti is renowned for.
With 125mm travel, the SB75 is a direct replacement for the ASR 5, a bike of fierce repute and a favourite of ours. The ‘5’ as it was affectionately known, brought all-mountain geometry and cross-country weight together, making it the trail bike of choice for many aggressive riders.
The 75 picks up this vibe and runs with it, maintaining the slack angles, long top tube and low bottom bracket height that made the 5 so much fun. The addition of 27.5″ wheels and the extremely good Switch suspension system should mean more efficiency and better roll-over too.
As we’ve noted before, the Switch system responds best to hard riding, so it’s fitting that the SB75 comes well equipped up front. Stock SRAM builds will come with a 140mm Rockshox Revelation, while this bike pack with a Shimano kit runs a 140mm-travel Fox 34 fork. Even with 140mm up front, Yeti importer Paul Rowney points out that there’s still a good leap between the SB75 and the SB66 – the 66’s length and geometry is decidedly more downhill focused.
In this XT guise the 75 is a smidge over 13kg, so by the time you’ve got tubeless and then added a dropper post (a must) it’ll balance out around 13.3kg. We expect there’ll be a carbon version of the 75 in the wings too.
The SB75 will be winging its way back to us next month for a proper review.