With winter now approaching in the U.K. and the COVID19 figures starting to climb dramatically once more, local lockdowns are becoming the norm with large parts of the country becoming no go zones on a daily basis. The laws dictating what we can and can’t do appear to change on a daily basis and I’m convinced no one really knows what we can or can’t do anymore. I certainly can’t keep up with the daily threats of fines from the government if we dare to go out and get things wrong. With different parts of the U.K. coming up with their own versions of each law it’s pretty much incomprehensible as to what we can or can’t do!
Freedom is certainly a thing of the past, but it’s for our safety … apparently.
To add to this, Azerbaijan and Armenia seem to be at war with each other and protests against the government in Kyrgyzstan seem to be flaring up on a regular basis. Mongolia has an emerging bubonic plague problem that is also making an appearance in Siberia. Can it get any worse?
With all that is going on I’m pretty certain that traveling through Central Asia in 2021 isn’t going to be possible, hopefully this will all improve and make travel possible in 2022. We can but hope!
Meanwhile, since purchasing my new Yamaha Tenere 700 Rally Edition I’ve not really ridden it that much and also not done a lot to it either. I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for it all at the moment.
I’ve got the centre stand fitted to the bike which makes chain adjustment and lubrication much easier. I’ve ordered the crash bars and am waiting for them to arrive and have pretty much decided on which pannier rack I’m going to purchase.
The Outback MotorTek 2.0 pannier rack looks like it will be ideal for mounting the Givi GRT709 soft panniers that I have, unfortunately the rack isn’t available in the U.K. yet and so I have to wait for it to become a stock item. The great thing about it is that it’s fairly light and very easy to fit/remove as can be seen in the video below.
There are some great after market parts now available for the Tenere 700 including some really nice looking decal kits.
There are some heavy duty skid plates now being produced for the Tenere 700, this one from GP Mucci in Italy looks like it would make the bike very adventure proof albeit a bit on the ugly side.
So that’s where I am at the moment, not a lot going on whilst we sit out the zombie apocalypse that seems to be gripping the world at present.
One of the great things about the little Honda CRF250 Rally that I initially purchased for the trip to Mongolia was its simplicity. No fancy electronics, cable controls and a long service interval, just what you need for an overland adventure where there won’t be any dealer support. For me, the most frustrating thing about the Rally was the lack of power.
Having had a long motorcycle career I’ve owned a lot of large CC bikes and have got used to the endless amounts of torque and power that are easily available at the twist of the throttle these days. Having the Rally and a 1000cc Kawasaki Versys at the same time highlighted this over and over again.
My trip to the Pyrenees earlier this year proved that the Rally is a great little trail bike and was a lot of fun on the mountain tracks but, at times the weight over powered the little 250cc engine to the point where it became very frustrating. Covering large distances quickly was pretty much impossible as the slightest head wind would knock 10MPH off the 60MPH cruise speed, making it even more frustrating. I soon came to the conclusion that this wasn’t the bike that I wanted to take on a 25000 mile journey as it would spoil the trip for me and I wasn’t going to let that happen at any cost.
So, once back from the trip I decided to sell the Rally and have a rethink. At the same time I also had a rethink about the Versys. Having put hardly any miles on it over the last year, it was spending most of its life covered up in the garage. With the ever rising costs of insurance and servicing I decided it was time to let it go too. As much as I loved riding the Versys with it’s silky smooth, torquey 4 cylinder engine it was soul destroying to see it just sitting begging to be used.
I put both bikes up for sale within days of each other and could had sold both of them multiple times over, the used bike market really is buoyant at the moment.
So in no time at all both bikes were sold and the garage was empty.
The relatively new Yamaha Tenere 700 is a bike I’ve had my eye on for some time. I took one for a short test ride when they first came out and really liked it and it’s been niggling at the back of my mind ever since.
Having the opportunity to ride one again it soon brought back memories of my old Tenere XT660z. No fancy electronics, simple controls and a bike that you have to actually ride as nothing is going to help you if you over cook things.
The new Tenere 700 is head and shoulders better than the old 660. The suspension is firm, no more diving under braking, handling is superb and the bike is so planted on the road that blasting down the twisties makes you whoop with excitement.
The Cross Plane 2 (CP2) 689cc engine has oodles of torque from the off, pulls like a train in all gears but, at the same time is silky smooth. If it didn’t have 700 on the side you could be excused for thinking it was more like a 900cc engine.
With the peak torque delivery being at 6500RPM it’s eager to accelerate no matter what gear you are in, it really is a very enthusiastic little engine. With the KYB suspension that comes as standard the bike handles extremely well on the road, much better than I imagined it would. Of course, I’m yet to ride it off-road as the dealer made it quite clear that they didn’t allow off-road test rides!
Unlike many bikes today (including my Versys 1000) the Tenere 700 doesn’t have a slipper clutch, for me this isn’t a problem as my 660 Tenere didn’t have one either and I have many fond memories of dropping a couple of gears coming up to roundabouts in the rain and the rear end getting a little lively. Personally I prefer traditional clutches, with the CP2 engine having bags of engine braking when rolling off the throttle it’s great to make use of this feature just like we did in the old days of the big single cylinder dirt bikes. The simplicity of this bike is its biggest plus by far. Those of you reading this that weren’t riding back in the 70’s and early 80’s won’t understand this!
Currently there are 3 different colour Tenere 700s available, black, dark blue and white with the latter being the better looking in my opinion.
In the last couple of months Yamaha have released a limited run of Tenere 700 Rally Edition bikes. Painted in their heritage rally colours and with an even higher standard specification they’ve been selling like hot cakes here in the U.K.
With each dealer only getting 3 Rally Edition bikes it’s now almost impossible to get one as most were sold before they even arrived in the U.K. I’ve also been reliably informed by a number of Yamaha dealers that there are no more, once they’re gone they’re gone. This will almost certainly help residuals in the future on the limited production run of the Rally Edition bikes.
If you are lucky, willing to phone around and travel a few miles you may find one still for sale, but be quick as there are many searching for this elusive beast.
So is it the bike for me? Well it’s certainly ticked all the boxes except one, weight. It’s heavier than I was hoping for but, all the other pluses of this bike outweigh this one thing and so it’s the compromise I have to accept. Looks like I’ll be heading to the gym once they open fully!
After much phoning around I found a Tenere 700 Rally Edition that hadn’t arrived in the U.K. yet and hadn’t been sold, needless to say I immediately put a deposit on it and a few days later I took the train down to Woodford Motorcycles in London and collected it.
The Akrapovich pipe sounds wonderful on the Yamaha Tenere 700 Rally Edition
With some crash bars, a pannier frame for my Givi GRT709 soft panniers and a centre stand this bike will be pretty much ready for the trip to Mongolia. Just need to get some miles on her now and get the first service done so that I can open her up a bit and enjoy that exhaust!
