FRO Ti

[ratcapa]

OK I know mine is steel but the sheer size of the rear hoops is just a bit odd, the quality of welds are like nothing I've ever seen on a high end bike regardless of frame material and it doesn't have the mono stay lower like the steel FRO although that may be correct, I stand corrected if it is real but it just doesn't feel right IMO.

 

[yagamuffin]

Would the radius of the curve in the stays have been made bigger to accommodate the disk mount?

 

[yo-Nate-y]

80 bids so far :shock:

Yeah,, but all from the same tentative dude, inching up verrry incrementally to the bids ahead of him.

I have no idea if it is a Yeti, but I will say it is kinda ugly.

 

[ratcapa]

Quite possibly but the fact the Arc Ti was made from 99 to 02 also seems odd, why would they go from the quality of production seen here on the ARC Ti to that of the FRO pictured above?

It seems like a backward step to me if it was made after the ARC like the alu FRO!??

 

[ratcapa]

This may add a little more light on the subject

http://www.yetifan.com/body_bikeography_ht.html

 

[The Ken]

The welds on the rear dropouts are not exactly high quality and are awful when compared to the arc ti.

 

[northerndave]

I think that's a home made job. The radius of the loop stays is an obvious issue, but the welds are terrible. Some of the welding does look like Ti but ugly.

I think the buyer will be a sucker.

 

[LeeDevelopment]

Until an official person pipes up about this frame it screams 'fake' to me. To reflect other people's comments, those loops are way too big and the welding is fugly. I don't believe for a minute that that was made for an employee of Yeti as if that was then the case the attention to the detail would be even higher than on a production bike. Just my 2p worth.

 

[pete_mcc]

Having compared this with another early loopstay Yeti Ti i would put my money on that being genuine. The early Yeti Ti frames were made in-house, the later ARC ones with the machined dropout were out-sourced, which would explain the quality difference as Yeti were not a renowned Ti house.

There are many features on that which are exactly the same as the early Yeti Ti frames, but there are a few features that say it was an employee frame rather than a production one. Obviously the finish is, well, unfinished as it's not been brushed. The second issue are the cable stops on the TT which were ARC type riveted ones on the early production ones but are welded on this one. The radius of the rear loop is perfectly matched to the early production ones and the drop outs look the same although there is a subtle difference on the non drive side. Finally the welding is 'interesting' on that one (although, I was told by someone in the know, that the Yeti welder responsible for the early Ti frames could be a little erratic in his welding).

I would say that it is an early 1999 loopstay yeti titanium, but maybe it was an employee learning the ti welding skills from the in-house welder, or maybe it was a rejected frame due to it's 'issues' that couldn't be sold but was saved from scrap.

 

[pete_mcc]

And if confiramtion was needed then you can't get much better than Andy at Yetifan.com:

http://yetifancom.proboards.com/index.c ... hread=2008