Ridden! Yamaha Tenere 700

Words: Ross Mowbray

I’ve been waiting a long time to ride this bike. It’s right up my street – a spiritual successor to the big trail bikes of yesteryear that have lost favour with the advent of even bigger, heavier adventure bikes. Okay, the T7 is still an adventure bike, but it’s one that’s been stripped to the bare essentials, to help make it much better suited to tackling trails than it is doing massive stints on the motorway. That makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. A lot of the current crop of adventure motorcycles are so big and bloated that most riders are reluctant to let them even sniff at the dirt.

That’s not going to be the case for the T7. A trip to the Lakes seemed like the perfect opportunity to put the bike through its places properly. We had a big route planned with some nadgery lanes, fast A-roads, mountain passes and gravel tracks thrown in for good measure. First things first… getting on the thing. With an 875mm seat, the Tenere sounds tall, but it’s actually not as painful to get on and off as you might think. I’m 6ft 1” and I could get both feet flat on the floor with room to spare. It’s comfortable enough, too.

We did some long days on the road and although the seat is narrow and fairly firm, I didn’t experience any of the aches or pains you might expect (the wide bars and upright riding position with plenty of legroom probably helped). There’s a decent amount of protection from the screen, and the mirrors work well, too. The dash might be a bit of a disappointment to some though; it’s just a simple LCD number with none of the technological trickery we’ve all become accustomed to.

That’s no skin off my nose, but it might be important to you. To me, it’s all about how well it goes. Bloody well, since you ask. Its motor is the one from Yamaha’s much-loved MT-07 – but it gets a few tweaks, including a reshaped airbox, new exhaust and updated fuel injection mapping. It’s a tried and tested unit that’s proven itself pretty much bombproof, so it’s easy to see why Yamaha opted for it this time around. With 72 (and a bit) bhp and 50ft-lb of torque, the Tenere is by no means the most powerful option on the market, but there’s plenty of punch to help put a smile on your face.

I reckon it’s a pretty perfect powerplant for the bike’s intended use. It’s fast enough to entertain, but not so feisty that it’ll catch out less experienced riders (which is particularly important on the trails). It’s happy enough on the motorway, too, with little in the way of vibration or obvious strain. Its brakes are a pair of 282mm wavy discs gripped by two-piston sliding callipers, which offer decent braking performance on- and offroad. The suspension – big 43mm KYB upside downers at the front, KYB monoshock at the back, and both fully adjustable for preload and rebound and compression damping – is also well up to the job. It leans towards firm, so I felt every lump and bump of the Lake District’s chewed-up Tarmac.

It’s a good compromise though, because when you hit the trails it all makes sense… there’s little chance of you bottoming out unless you’re really barrelling over tricky terrain and jumping stuff you should probably think twice about. The 21-inch front wheel gives the bike proper off-road kudos and although they compromise road performance, the Pirelli Scorpion Rally tyres cope well with the twin demands of Tarmac scratching and trail bashing. It handles aggressive road riding better than it has any right to. Road bikes would be faster, but the T7’s a joy to flick from side to side with a tug of those big, wide bars. Off-road, the story is the same – the only significant limits to the Tenere’s handling are mitigated by its engine performance; you’re unlikely to ride into trouble because the bike is so easy-going and capable.

As an entry-level, affordable, unsophisticated my-first-adventure bike that does the basics of performance and handling to a high degree of confidence both on and off-road – which is no mean feat of development in itself, whatever the price – the Tenere 700 is pretty much in a class of its own. The other bikes might be more expensive, more comfortable and more ‘capable’, but the T n r  700 is the one for me without a doubt. If I was parting with my hard-earned cash, it’s the one I’d buy from the bunch. It really is very good.

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