Yamaha’s Ténéré 700: Off-road ready, ready for an off?
With two months and two thousand miles completed on the T7, Charlie thinks he has now prepped the Ténéré to the point where he can do some proper mudslinging
An extremely excited call from MSL contributor and all-round legendary m’cycle scribbler Chris Moss started my working year. Over the Christmas period Chris had obviously been catching up on his reading and saw that I was now running the Ténéré 700, taking him approximately seven minutes into my first working day of 2023 to call me and applaud ‘my’ chosen ride.
I say ‘my’ as you may already be aware the bike came to me via Mikko, the now departed Editor of MSL, to teach me a thing or two about the Adventure discipline. Having always been a ‘sporty’, much of this sector is new to me and with Mikko changing jobs I also lost my mentor – but it appears to have not taken long to find a temporary replacement.
Mossy has probably crashed more bikes than I have ridden, most recently a World Raid ironically enough. However, now back to full fitness he appears to be chomping at the bit to make sure I am getting the most out of what he describes as probably “the most capable dual-purpose motorcycle around”. We have hatched a plan to find some mud on Salisbury Plain where I will shortly be headed in time for the next issue.
Fortuitously, I have been preparing the T700 for such experiences. Prior to the real cold snap I had the bike up on the ramp at Phoenix Motorcycles, a Yamaha dealership based in Trowbridge, to put a few safety precautions in place. Mechanic Wayne has been making up for my inadequacies on the tools for years now but was surprised to see me rolling up on an adventure bike, more akin to helping me out with R1s and R6s, and even helped me complete a build of a TZR 250 which launched my extremely short and unconvincing racing career.
Accompanying me to Phoenix was a box of crash protection from R&G and SWMotech. Also I had the hard wiring loom from Keis ready for fitting so that I would be able to plug in for these winter miles to come.
With the arrival of any long-term test bike, I have always reached for the R&G ‘Bat-phone’ as you can pretty much rest assured that they have your bike, no matter how new it is, added to their extensive range. Now three years old, it was no surprise to find what I wanted in terms of crash protection for the Ténéré: the Engine Case Cover kit covering both sides; front spindle sliders; a universal exhaust protector; paddock stand bobbins; and a tail tidy.
Another benefit to R&G is that you know it’s going to fit and is easy to do, especially with Wayne doing it, of course, the only exception being the rear tidy as removing the OE tail piece was a bit of a mission being in two pieces with numerous screws and bolts to remove. The irony to this was for the first time tidying a tail I was not sure it was the right decision – I like a nice stubby end to an R1 but given the design of the Ténéré the loss in length looks a bit odd. Though now there is less to damage and benefits from a significant weight saving of over half a kilo – not imperative at this time but nice to have.
In addition to the above I also managed to get hold of a very different set of protection from SW Motech. The ‘Protection Set’ consists of guards to protect the brake and water pumps and includes additional strips of flexible, ventilated brushed stainless-steel plating to wrap around your header pipes. The latter protecting your headers in that gap between where the bash plate finishes and where a radiator grill should start, when I get one.
It is the pump protectors that really standout though, the rear brake pump protector made from aluminium and is a seamless addition to the footrest. The water pump protector is genuinely beautiful, high strength aluminium alloy, CNC-etched giving it a quality finish. Unfortunately, the water pump is already covered by the engine casing, though. I had to choose one or the other; the decision was to stick with the R&G for now purely down to the surface area of the bike it protected. Apart from the above this has not been the busiest of months on the road for the Ténéré. Over the winter, trips have been few and far between given the holidays, but I have not been shying away from adverse weather.
A planned final week of meetings before the Christmas break coincided with that brutal cold snap at the start of December. I had the choice of car or bike, but given winter gear to test and a fully protected Ténéré at my disposal it could only be the latter. This was not the easiest choice but planning a route that limited the wind chill of motorway mileage on roads
that were mostly treated made for a more eventful and less treacherous ride.
Had I had a sports bike in my garage I cannot guarantee I would have chosen the two-wheeled option. My reasoning being that a bike designed for both road and off-road performance would be able to handle those grit-laden, potentially icepatched roads far better than a track weapon. So it proved to be, and despite it having to sit outside overnight in minus double digits and covered in thick frost each morning, the Ténéré started on the button with hardly a wince, proving how battle hardy this machine really is.
A tip of the cap to Keis heated clothing for aiding comfort but maximum kudos to this Ténéré, I haven’t thrown much at it yet but now 2,000 miles old in my company I am yet to register any disappointment at all.