Against All Odds, the Yeti Defies Extinction

With BCBR looming in the not-so-far-off distance, it finally came time to do what one must inevitably do to one's beat-up old bike before packing it up to go stage racing:

[insert ominous music]

The Complete Overhaul.

Overhauling a bike is not unlike putting it in a Star Trek transporter:



You strip it down to atomic components,try to remember how everything went together, then try to reassemble something that looks and works like the original somewhere else, using all new stuff.

As Prof. Krauss notes above, there's a number of problems with this. First of all, there are some laws of physics in the way:
and second, you can't do it without Scotty:
Lacking futuristic technology we often fell back on disassembly techniques such as hammering, drilling and grinding:
But in the end (= 4:15AM) all the pieces, including all 50ish pieces of the suspension linkage,
were reincarnated in un-broken form.

Natural selection, the powerful albeit oft questioned force, has simplified bikes significantly since the 2002 Yellow Yeti [Kokopelli AS]. It's predecessor, the ASR, uses about half as many suspension pieces than this relic of times past (my bike uses about 10pcs total), and a good thing too--the overhaul took us about 6 hours from beginning to end with a pretty substantial tool chest, and we're still not entirely done...

The YY may have outlived its era, but a little help from a pair of dedicated conservationists has allowed it to struggle on.

On mountain bikes in the mornin' fo' sho'.