hen you talk mountain bikes, you talk Yeti. Yeti: Where state of the art is run of the mill. When you talk built by hand, you talk Yeti. Yeti: Handmade in Durango, Colorado. Race proven for the Mammoth Mountain Kamikaze Downhill. Not exactly a Sunday morning stroll, but a 50-mile-an-hour-plus free-fall straight down the side of a California mountain. Vertical drop?--2,500 feet. Hold on.
Yeti is the dream of welder by trade, John Parker, 40, a former motorcycle racer and Hollywood special effects man who started Yeti in Southern California in 1985. He moved Yeti's world headquarters to Durango, the center of the mountain-bike universe, last year. Parker calls his company "Yeti," the name of the Himalayan snow monster from the Tibetan legend, because he "wants to put a smile on people's faces."
Smile. Now in production at Yeti's racing factory is the Yeti A.R.C., a three-pound frame that survived the rigors of the international mountain-bike circuit. Yeti: Made to race; designed to win.
Team Yeti
hen you talk mountain-bike racing, you talk Yeti. World-class racing in its purest form. When you talk championships, you talk Yeti.
Some recent history: In 1990, Yeti won two UCI World Championship gold medals with Joey Irwin and Juli Furtado. In 1991, Yeti won three NORBA (National Off-Road Bicycling Association) National Championships with Furtado, Johnny O'Mara and Missy Giove.
When you talk racers, you talk Yeti. Yeti builds the fastest bikes on the planet. Yeti is the breeding grounds for mountain biking's leading competitors.
Some past history: Top riders who helped shape Yeti's unparalleled racing tradition start with current cross-country world champ and arguably the best mountain-bike racer in the world, John Tomac (Raleigh); then Juli Furtado (now with GT), Tinker Juarez (Klein), Don Myrah (Marin-Reebok-GMC), Joey Irwin (Haro) and Johnny O'Mara (Diamond Back). All raced Yeti bikes.
Some current history: On July 26, Yeti's Jim Deaton recorded the fastest downhill in history, 4:54--56 miles an hour!--winning the famed 3.5-mile Kamikaze to become the only three-time Kamikaze champ. Deaton's young disciple of speed, Yeti Fly Girl Missy Giove, set a new women's world-record time, hammering the world's longest downhill course in 5:00:34--53 1/2 miles an hour.
