Yamaha Tenere 700 -Rally
What better place than around Rutland to try out the Yamaha Tenere 700 rally edition - plenty of corners, straights and cruising to really give the bike a thorough test ride.
First thoughts of the bike, it’s massive! Not for wanting to state the obvious, it’s a tall bike and would possibly be a struggle for shorter riders, I myself was on tip toes. At a stand still it feels relatively top heavy and a little precarious to move about, however once you’re on the move that feeling soon disappears and it feels perfectly balanced, becoming very easy to control and manoeuvre even at feet up walking pace.
With a bike owning CV made up of sports bikes I really appreciated the upright position and the commanding road presence offered from a motorcycle of this stature. Being able to see over the tops of cars, hedges etc makes for a much safer riding experience and even though I was in full race riding gear the comfort level was high.
Having never sampled the Yamaha 700 twin engine before I was immediately impressed with its excellent fuelling and broad spread of power. It is very much a case of not judging an engine by just its spec sheet and I can now understand the stance of many other testers that have stated the lack of need for any more power (and it’s associated weight increase).
It’s clear while riding a lot of time has been spent in the models development and testing focusing on all the little details such as the peg/seat/bar positions, lever positions/ reach etc as everything just feels to be in the ‘right place’ both for sitting down and standing up riding. Often jumping on a new bike I have to spend some time adjusting these items but on this model I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
I was particular taken with both the front and rear brake set ups. Excellent lever travel to pressure ratio resulting in great feel working in tandem with the soft and forgiving nature of the suspension which laughed at the worst the test route roads could throw at it.
I now fully understand why this segment of motorcycles is so popular world wide and would love to be able to add one to my bike owning cv in future.
Please keep your eye out for the reminder of the test bike reviews coming out over the next few weeks for all the bikes ridden at Sycamore Yamaha during Yamaha Live.
