YETI 160E T1
Five years in the making, will Yeti’s e-bike debut delight or disappoint its dedicated fans?
£11,899 / 29in / silverfish-uk.com
Yeti has never had to worry about making an undesirable bike – every model in its back catalogue has been lusted after since the very first FRO – and yet its marketing is among the most compelling in the world. Visit the Yeti website and I challenge you not to be nodding your head in approval, dribbling onto your keyboard and reaching for your credit card.
Yet I suspect the Colorado brand must have had a crisis of confidence during the development of its very first e-bike, since it has taken a lengthy five years to get from drawing board to showroom floor. Watch the slick video charting the development process and scroll down the product page and you’ll come away with the impression that Yeti didn’t want to release the 160E until it was just right. Perfect, even. But since product perfection is pure folly, and development is a continual process (you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a 160E V2 in a few years time), my hunch is that it wanted to see the (mostly North American) market soften in its opinion of e-bikes before entering the lion’s den. Once Santa Cruz had taken that flak, and people actually started questioning the lack of a Yeti e-bike, the time was right. Theories aside, though, the real question is not why it took so long, but has Yeti got it right?
One thing the 160E has in spades is complexity. Not content with a four-bar suspension design, Yeti has developed a six-bar system to replace the Switch Infinity sliding-rail mechanism used on its trail and enduro bikes. Why not use Switch Infinity? For the simple reason that there’s not enough room above the Shimano EP8 motor. So Yeti went back to the drawing board and came up with something that does a similar job, albeit in a different way. The basic premise is to manipulate the position of the main pivot (in this case a virtual one) to change the pedalling and braking characteristics, with the aim of making the suspension taut and efficient around sag, but fluid and free of pedal kickback deeper in the travel.
On the 160E, the lower link rotates upwards through the early part of the travel, then at around 50% stroke, the rigid Sixfinity strut – connecting the rocker link with the lower link – starts to push the lower link back down. As such, the anti-squat starts high (at over 100%) in the early stages of the travel, to keep the bike stable under power, then falls away dramatically after the ‘Inflection Point’ for better traction – particularly in the higher gears. Clever though it is, there’s no doubt that the Sixfinity strut – sticking out either side of the rocker link – is not exactly elegant. Furthermore, and this is a rhetorical question, who says such a complex linkage and
One thing the has in spades is complexity
engineered anti-squat curves are really needed on an e-bike, seeing as pedal efficiency is hardly priority number one?
As you’d hope with a price tag approaching £12k, the 160E T1 gets a full carbon frame using Yeti’s top-end TURQ series fibres. There’s a cheaper C1 model too, boasting the same frame but dressed with Fox Performance suspension and Shimano SLX parts. Even so, it’s still £9,499.
On the top T1 model, no such compromises are necessary. Up front is the excellent Fox 38 Factory fork with 170mm travel, Grip2, four-way adjustable damping and e-bike tune, while out back you get the equally sublime Fox Float X2 shock. Shimano handles the drivetrain duties with a full XT set-up while SRAM provides the Code RSC brakes, including e-bike friendly 220mm front and 200mm rear rotors. DT Swiss EX1700 wheels are shod with excellent Maxxis Assegai and
Minion DHR II tyres, and I was pleased to see that Yeti had opted for the burlier EXO + up front and reinforced Double Down casing out back. Yeti’s UK Distributor had additionally fitted Cushcore inserts both front and rear to this test bike, which was total overkill and added around 250g to the weight of each wheel.
Shimano’s EP8 drive system (paired with 630Wh internal battery) has been around a while now, so I won’t spend much time going over old ground, suffice to say the natural-feeling response and compact dimensions are let down somewhat by the underwhelming torque, occasionally disappointing range and slight rattle when coasting. That said, it’s well supported by dealers.
For a bike unashamedly aimed at enduro e-bike racing, the 160E has a relatively conservative 64.5° head angle. We actually measured it slightly slacker than claimed at 64°, which tallies pretty closely to the brand’s successful analogue SB150. In fact the 160E closely mirrors the SB150 in almost every dimension. Where the two diverge is the chainstay, which is 10mm longer on the e-bike to make room for the motor, and the bottom bracket height, which is 2mm higher. Except