# Yokota



## dompedro3 (Jan 26, 2004)

Im not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I bought a yokota frame about a year ago and built it up as a singlespeed. The frame is beautiful and I would like to know what you know about yokota's. I've seen a few for sale on ebay and I know the frame was made in california, its some sort of tange tubing (I cant remember) and had a white with kind of smoke paint job. I believe it was originally called the yosemite. I have painted over the original paint job but was wondering about the frame itself, it rides beautifully, but has a few small cracks on the top of the seat tube, i compensated by using a huge triple bolt seat collar. So here are the questions, How well built of a frame were the yokotas? Is it sorth taking it to a frame fixer to repair the seat tube? anyways, just curious, let me know. If needed i can post some pics of the frame.


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## Rumpfy (Dec 21, 2003)

dompedro3 said:


> Im not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I bought a yokota frame about a year ago and built it up as a singlespeed. The frame is beautiful and I would like to know what you know about yokota's. I've seen a few for sale on ebay and I know the frame was made in california, its some sort of tange tubing (I cant remember) and had a white with kind of smoke paint job. I believe it was originally called the yosemite. I have painted over the original paint job but was wondering about the frame itself, it rides beautifully, but has a few small cracks on the top of the seat tube, i compensated by using a huge triple bolt seat collar. So here are the questions, How well built of a frame were the yokotas? Is it sorth taking it to a frame fixer to repair the seat tube? anyways, just curious, let me know. If needed i can post some pics of the frame.


Post pics anyway because we like that sort of thing round these parts.

As for the frame, I remember them really going after the Specialized (Stumpjumper) market in the early 90's. I think the frames were pretty similar in feel and ride....I opted for the Stumpy in the end thanks to Ned Overand.

Is it worth fixing? Yes and no. If you really like it and you can find someone to do it real cheap like...do it. Will it appreciate in value or become as 'collectable' as various other vintage MTB's...perhaps not. IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), it may not be worth the effort to have the repair work done. There are just too many other quality vintage steel framed mtb's out there to be had...


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## RobynC (Feb 14, 2004)

Yeah, I remember those full page ads in MBA back in the day--Yokota vs. the Stumpjumper!

My wife bought this Yokota Yosemite in 1996, only on this one the tubeset is Columbus Cromor-OR, not Prestige. I know little about the history of the brand. At the time it looked like a decent entry to mid-level bike. 1-1/8" Tioga headset. Tioga tires, Tioga "Dirt Research" seatpost, stem, bars, bar ends; STX drivetrain. Weinemann/Bontrager rims. Fully loaded is how I could describe it. The only thing we ever added was the Terry saddle.

The Columbus frame has a lot of interesting details like macaroni-shaped cable guides and dropouts with "YOKOTA" stamped into them.

I have heard people say that the Yokota name is Japanese. It may be, but actually I think it is supposed to be a Native American name. Now that this thread has been posted I'd be curious to learn more about the bike's history.


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## dompedro3 (Jan 26, 2004)

*a little more info 'bout mine*

Mine also had the macaroni cable guide but I see yours had a top pull front deraileur while mine had a bottom pull (i rode it as a single speed so i never used it.) The frame was tange prestige with the little yokota stamped onto the drop outs (cant see it any more cause i repainted the frame without knowing much about it). It has a 1 1/8 headset and a 26.8 seatpost. im not sure of the angles but it is a very fun bike to ride and handles a 80mm suspension fork fairly well.








this is the basic frame








this is where it is cracking on the seat-tube








theses are the neat looking drop-outs (you cant see where yokota is stamped but its there)


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## Gazoo (Feb 16, 2004)

I had a Yokota Half Dome way back when..it was XT XTR and was a great bike. Yokota was a Japanese frame builder, one of the biggest in the orient at the time who decided to market their own brand. They had great bikes with great specs at low prices Not sure what happened to them any one know the story?


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## dompedro3 (Jan 26, 2004)

*saw this on mtbr*

could the gary yokota be a past frame builder?
http://www.mtbreview.com/spotlight/santacruz/


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## J Ro (Jan 13, 2004)

hmmm interesting, i seem to remember they were sold to Dirt Research. I had a Yosemite back in the day, it was my first "real" mountain bike. I don't remember it being stamped Yokota on the drops, but i do know it had the macaroni style cable router. I actually had started looking around recently on ebay and this site for one. One sold recently on ebay but i missed it., and there is one currently on ebay. hmmm


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## Manicmtbr (Jan 26, 2004)

*Two Different Yakota's*

The Yakota Frames in the pictures were distributed by Strictly Wholesale in Newark, DE. They were heavily marketed in CA and I believe they even had a race team. Strictly Wholesale then started distributing Dirt Research. Reid Rollins (owner of Yakota, Dirt Research, and Ballistic forks) has a bunch of the Dirt Research frames in his warehouse and sells them from time to time on Ebay. He will sell direct (if you drive there) and his prices are pretty good for a steel bike, but not rock bottom. $280 will get you a Columbus EL-OS frame and a matching Tange fork. I bought one last year and used it as a race bike. Unfortunately, they were built around a 63 MM fork and I had trouble finding a good 63 MM fork, so it sits in my shed now waiting to be reborn.

The top end Yakota's were built by Thomas Teesdale (TETcycles.com). All of the later Dirt Research frames are very similiar to TET's, but built in Japan. I think Tom built the Half-Dome framesets. They will have on TET in the bottom bracket shell.

The Yakota builder had nothing to do with these frames. A few years ago, he said something about the "cheap bikes" built with his name. I never had a problem with my Dirt Research and have a few friends who bought Yakota's in 1994 when Reid was blowing them out. Reid is also a great source of 1 1/4 and 1 inch stems.


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## flyingsuperpetis (Jan 16, 2004)

*Q&A with Rob Roskopp, Santa Cruz Bicycles Co-founder

Date: 8-16-2002

Rob:​​* We recently hired a master frame builder by the name of Gary Yokota. Gary has been around the Bay Area for years and has built a great reputation as one of the best custom bike builders. We wanted to develop our products faster and, more importantly, better. With our two engineers Dave Earle and Joe Graney using Pro E software we are able to cut down the development time of a new product in half. Pro E has been very helpful by sponsoring us with their latest state of the art software. It has greatly helped the development of the VPP bikes. Now with Gary in-house the Santa Cruz customer will see even better products in the near future.

*Other Photos:* 








​
[TR][TD]*Rob Roskopp with Gary Yokota, master frame designer and builder.*

*FSP*

* -**ZZ9,PluralZAlpha*


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