dirty sundays

1988 YETI F.R.O. "LAND SHARK"

Early Yeti FRO from 1988 with original paint by John Slawta (or his brother) at Land Shark.

Serial #588

Seat tube length: 16 3/4 c-c & 18 3/4 c-top

Round top tube

Symplex dropouts

1" BMX headset

no chainsaty reinforcing gusset

Sold in 1989 by Redlands & Riverside Cyclery in SoCal. 

Nowadays: www.cycleryusa.com

I purchased it from a guy in Portland, OR.

The bike came in a poor condition. Due to the unique paintjob, I tried to save it and keep it original. It definitely has some patina and looks like it was well used, although surprisingly it has no cracks and was never repaired - as far as I know and can tell from what I see.

Only parts I wanted to keep were the CBR cranks and M732 brakes. When the bike arrived, I realized that the driveside crank arm has a massive crack. I'm still looking for a replacement. I have newer CBR's but I wanna keep this earlier version of cranks as it matches the production year. 

Bike is build with a complete Shimano M730 groupset down to the 6s uniglide cassette. I kept the 732 brakes as I liked the black better than the 730 silver brakes.

I used a Tioga Double Lock Nut to avoid cutting the fork steerer too short and it goes well with the T-Bone stem and Prestige bars. Grips are Toad Stool. All those parts are NOS.

Araya RM-20 rims with Tioga Farmer John tires.

NOS Shimano XT 26.6 seatpost with a 1987 perforated Turbo saddle. Original Yeti seat collar with a NOS Shimano QR. 

Craig Kundig, founder and owner of Cyclery USA:

Did come from us (Cyclery USA). I remember the paint job the minute I saw it.

The owner was Dale Cooper, an employee in Riverside.