Yamaha T700 Tenere owners thread

For US people.

Imperial (UK) MPG to US MPG.

63.9 = 53.2
55 = 45.8
50 = 41.6

I found two annoying things:

1. The fork reflectors are on bent metal supports which are bolted to the brake calliper and also support the mudguard. Hence they can’t just be unbolted to remove the reflectors. Probably needs a Dremel to cut off the bit the fork reflectors are on.
2. Trying to lower the gear lever by a spline or two - unbolt the top splined connector where it goes into the gearbox, slide the connector rod mounting off the spline, lower gear lever a couple of splines and refit. When the gear lever is depressed it now hits the frame, preventing it having full travel. Looks like gear lever adjustment is very limited in the downward direction.

Lovely evening ride....

Why remove them? Don't they help make the bike more visiible to cars?

I guess it's an aesthetics thing, but I wouldn't remove it. The more safe, the better.

Would you be able to bend the gear lever out a bit to miss the frame? Or is the situation not that simple?

Doesn’t look like it. The frame is in the way below the gear lever right near the pivot. In fact it’s not the frame itself, but a metal moulding that carries the footpeg, gear lever and other bits. There appears to be a sticky out bit on this metal moulding that is there specifically to arrest further downward travel of the gear lever. Weird.

Personally I like the gear lever to be a bit more downward on all my bikes, but also I think it is particularly useful when standing and your foot and ankle are at a different angle compared to when sitting.

Thanks all, for your reports, and well done on the early adoption and purchase of gorgeous looking machines - let's hope they go as good as they look. A mate has the red/white T7 due, sometime this summer - we're both champing at the bit - travelled some way to touch the grey model last weekend.
Tobers - used your Tobinator on my GS 1150 sometime in the mid Naughties! It worked well.

Duuude! Thanks for your custom! I had great fun with my little Tobinators business. I sold it eventually to Wunderlich and used the money to fund my sports photography business which I had a real laugh with for a decade or so, culminating in shooting the World Cup in Brazil in 2014. Most excellent.

Good job Tobers - although, I can't bloody remember what the thing looked like! I did not realise that you did well with the Tobinator as a little business. Anyway, it is nice to come back to the forums and recognise a few old names - I read and ride but don't post much. What do you find yourself doing these days?

I'm gonna wait now to see how you lot get on with the T7 and ride matey's to get a flavour of it and ponder whether or not I want to resurrect my big-trailie (err.. I mean 'ADV') riding-days again.

Are you not too concerned with the tubeless rims on this bike; or am I worrying over a hackneyed/moot point regarding tubed/tubeless rims - I've not travelled on an ADV bike for a few years now, since my TransAlp in fact.

A flat on a tube tire sucks when you're out touring. But Japanese company Outex sells a kit to convert it to tubeless for about $110. Converted my Africa Twin after my first flat and never looked back.

Great to see some feedback from people actually riding these.
Quick question, I'm a tad concerned about the seat height.
I'm 178cm (5ft10"), anybody about as tall as I (or shorter) has one these motorcycle...would love to hear from you.
Thanks.

Hey, I'm 175cm, 5ft9", 30 inseam and had a f800gs. The GS was 880mm. The T7 is 875cm.
I had no problems riding the GS. After some time I got a low seat which dropped the height to 850. Was even better. The low seat on the T7 Will drop it to 855.
I have an airhawk for long hauls, don't think the low seat will be a problem comfort wise.

I'm 6'2" with 34" inseam. I can flat-foot on the T7 with the standard seat. I imagine you'll be on the balls of your feet somewhat, but there is a lower seat.

How do those beautiful LEDs work??? Is it a styling exercise or an effective means of turning nite into day?

I rode into late dusk last night. Not proper dark, but dark enough to see the beam pattern and colour, and hit the main beams to see what they are like. Seems really quite good. Well focused beam pattern and nice white light. I need to do a proper night ride to tell for sure.

Rear end strip today to see what the situation is with regard to replacing the catastrophically ugly tail unit with a much neater tail tidy. The bad news is that it’s a very complicated unit with many plastic components, and there is a whole plastic piece that goes all the way under the passenger seat and along to the rear light and number plate hanger. Annoying. Means a simple replacement with a generic tail tidy is not possible. The Yamaha optional tail tidy will still hang way out back and dangle too low.

Anyway here are some pics. Strip down and reinstall took about an hour first time.

First, here it is with both seats off. Rear seat comes off with the key. Front seat comes off with two allen bolts to reveal the snorkel and battery.



Look what’s under the front seat! A high quality toolkit. Nothing other than the best pressed mild steel will do.


Rear plastic off. It’s a number of bolts to remove it, and all fairly easy. You can see the ECU tucked in there. There’s a bit of space where the battery area is. Also some along the sides between the bottom black panel and the top blue panel.


And here’s the insanely large and complicated rear tail unit. I really don’t know why they make it so complex. They could save money on the build and assembly with a far simpler unit. To tidy everything up you’d need to buy a new part (the big plastic bit with the hand grip dimples on it) and cut it off parallel with the line of the bottom of the rear light. You could then fix a tail tidy to the black metal bit that has some mud spatter on it.


Anyway - plans for the future. Need to ride it more now. Hope you found that interesting. I always like taking bikes apart when I first get them to see what’s what under the skin.

Air Filter: If this has been covered, please forgive me. Where is it, how hard is it to get to, etc?

Just have to remove the rider seat, and it's just there!

Min 10:37

^^They don't pull the plastic air filter cover...Is it paper or oiled foam?

EDIT: I look forward to learning more about this bike...And riding one in 2020(?) when it reaches the USA.