Yamaha's Ténéré 700: What lies within?

With far more road miles under his belt, Charlie looks at the Ténéré Family by numbers.

- Charlie Oakman

It’s a hazard of the job that up until now I have been relatively resistant to – collecting bikes. I have owned a few over the years: a CB500 to race, Z1000 because it was beautiful, and a 2009 ZX-6R which, ultimately, I fell in love with, to name but a few. However, work in a dog’s home and you will undoubtedly have homed a dog; a stationery shop I would imagine you would have pens everywhere and working on a bike mag. Well, every now and then a bike comes along that you can’t imagine living without – this is how I am feeling about this Ténéré 700.

I have been back in the seat for long periods again this month, February less so due to other commitments but work allowed more road-time in March which saw the T7 clock its 4,500-mile mark and I have been onboard for 2,600 of them over a period of four winter months. Not a bad mark-up for winter riding, which goes some way to indicate how well the Ténéré deals with adverse conditions, and myself thinking about it – though that has been helped by heated gloves, heated grips and covering myself in glue and running through a Rukka store.

I have been inspired to delve into the performance of the Ténéré this month, especially as I am also involved in a project with MSL’s sister title Fast Bikes magazine where ‘we’ are working alongside Michael Rutter and his Bathams Racing team to build a Super Twin for this year’s Isle of Man TT. The bike of choice is Yamaha’s YZF-R7. A bike that you may be aware shares the same CP2 engine as the Ténéré and the grininducing MT-07.