Nick Sanders MBE grabs a new Ténéré 700 and heads for Dakar

Globe-trotting legend Nick Sanders to retrace old Paris-Dakar route on Yamaha’s new Ténéré 700

Nick Sanders MBE rode one of the very first new Ténéré 700s off the assembly line at Yamaha’s French production facility last Wednesday, with his sights set firmly on North Africa. The record-breaking circumnavigator will spend the next few weeks riding the MT-07derived adventure bike through Europe then into Senegal, the traditional finish of the original Paris-Dakar rally where the original Yamaha Ténéré bloodline was born. Sanders was involved with the new Ténéré’s development and has already ridden the bike in Wales, but this trip will be his first opportunity to discover what it is truly capable of over big distances.

“It’s a bit of an experiment really,” Sanders told MCN. “The bike is great but it’s never been anywhere before.”

His route takes him down the Trans Euro Trail, a network of dirt tracks through France, over the Pyrenees into Spain before heading to Morocco. From there he’ll follow the route of the 1998 Dakar, the last Yamaha won following star rider Stéphane Peterhansel’s retirement. “It’s like a bit of a holiday for me,” Sanders continued. “Once I’m in Morocco, I’ll head over the Atlas Mountains, into the desert, down to Mauritania, then pop in to Senegal. I think the whole trip will take about four or five weeks.” As well as celebrating Yamaha’s Dakar heritage, the trip is a test to see how the bike copes before Sanders’ planned 100,000km round-the-world trip on the bike which starts this Autumn. “I’ve been with Yamaha for 16 years and we’ve done a lot together,” he went on. “I’ve done over half-a-million miles on various Yamahas, including going around the world four times. So if anyone should do it, I should do it. “This is the first time we’ve a lightweight bike that’s a genuine on and off-road machine and therefore we’re able to take tracks I wouldn’t risk taking before. There’s more confidence that I can go to places and not worry about picking it up if I have a tumble. It really doubles up the options.” Sanders previously lapped the world on an R1 in a recordbreaking time of 19 days and four hours, and rode various journeys on Super Ténérés and a Tracer 700. If the new Ténéré 700 can acquit itself well it’ll prove you don’t need a huge, complex adventure bike to shrink the globe.