Wintersdark

It's not far from there, though. Pull the passenger pegs, install a full exhaust system (I know from personal experience the Black Widow systems sound awesome on the CP2) and you get it down to some 435ish. But I'm genuinely surprised at how capable it is on road, with the stock Pirelli Scorpions. It definitely gets some vibration happening at triple digit speeds, but no more than my Tracer does. It's windshield (laughably, if I'm being honest) works better than the Tracer windshield too. Of course, that aside it's not even remotely comparable in a sport touring role, but it IS a great street bike stock, and you could opt to drop a tooth or two on the rear sprocket to lower highway RPM's - but to be completely honest I feel that's wholly unnecessary. Maybe if you really want to hold 100+mph for a long time. However, something to keep in mind is while the T7 is insanely fuel efficient for most riding, that falls off very quickly after about 140kph/85mph. The T7 has a reasonably size tank so even at speed it's not too bad for range, but if you don't push past 85mph it'll go WAY further. Or get the aftermarket tank and go hog wild. Whatever For me though, all that was important was that it be serviceable on asphalt, and that it's actually very good there is just pure gravy.

Mine works fine and is reliable, it's just really, really annoying to use. @petshark is right, there's just a very specific angle you've got to push it at to get it to work right. Sadly, that's not a very intuitive angle for me at least at the angle my controls are at. I've not complained to a dealer - and I imagine most don't - because what would be the point? What's the dealer going to do, if it does work but is just a bad design?

Yeah, that bloody thumbwheel is without a doubt the most terribly designed part of the bike. It's awful. Even with two years of practice it still takes me a couple attempts to turn my heated grips on or off; sometimes I push it and instead of registering as a push, it registers as a turn, so then I need to turn it back to highlight the heated grip indicator again and try pushing from a slightly different angle. Each time there's an absurd amount of resistance and I'm afraid it'll break. I'm so, SO, SO glad my Tenere just has a little switch on the gear to push to change between what's displayed on the dash, and a couple regular buttons. To this day, that damn wheel enrages me.

Me too. I'd happily buy swag both to help support the site and to have nifty stuff, but as a Canadian on a Japanese bike, there's really not a lot of sense in an American flag on it.

Those two questions are critical, and are why this is perfectly safe. So, in my photo, when the bike is on the center stand and idling, the chain would be moving upwards, with my hand at the rear. If the rag somehow catches (something that's never happened to me, but isn't completely outside of the realms of possibility though extremely unlikely) then the rag gets pulled up and then forwards. There's a lot of space there, the chain guard is plastic, soft mounted, and flexible, it'll probably jam up in there and stall the bike. If it does not, it'll go with the chain forwards to the front sprocket and then definitely stall the bike. Either way, it stalls the bike very quickly, and doesn't do any harm. The rag isn't wrapped around my hand, and even if I don't immediately let go the rag will be pulled from my hand. I cannot be holding too tightly the chain is moving, after all; if I was holding tightly my hand would try to follow the chain and can't because the chain is moving up and away from me. In order to be pulled off my feet/stool/whatever, I'd have to suddenly grip the moving chain extremely hard (and again would probably just stall the bike), so hard that my thumb and forefinger are providing enough purchase on the lubricated chain/rag to drag my entire bodyweight. I don't even know if I'm physically capable of that. Accidental wrapping on my hand? It would take some doing to figure out a way to wrap a rag around my hand so that I can be pulled forward by the idling bike several feet to where it meets the front sprocket, without stalling the bike, having the rag just come off the chain (remember, there are absolutely zero pinch points between where my hand is on the outside of the chain clear through to the front sprocket), come off my hand, or tear. The danger is in wiping a chain on a running motorcycle on the inside of the chain, particularly on the bottom, having your hands/rags around the chain itself where it's going to meet the rear sprocket. That's a very dangerous spot, where there's pokey hurty stuff happening, and where the chain is moving either across in front of you or towards you - in both cases, if something gets caught it's not being pulled away from your body, so there's nothing to help unstick stuff before it gets to the hurty spot. The bottom of the rear sprocket, where the chain is meeting it, is exposed and close to you whereas the top top of the front sprocket is extremely well guarded and furthest from you.

So, some extra data today on this note. Did a bit of windy roads on the Tenere, and holding 160kph/100mph+, it's still very, very easy to handle. Definite unpleasant vibration at that point, though. Handles the speed fine, leans well, easy to be very confident in twisties, but at high speeds the vibration is annoying. It's curious - I suppose due to the tire size and or geometry - that early lean tends to be very steady but after about 40 degrees it gets suddenly much easier to lean more, feels kind of like it wants to fall into corners. Not bad if you're counterleaning, but if you're leaned over on the bike it's a bit alarming until you get used to it.

That's the goal - and was a major reason to justify the expense vs getting a DR650 or some such. Fuel injection is WAY easier to deal with at -25c than an old carbed bike. Gotta find somewhere selling studs at a reasonable price, or maybe buy some used tires and try my hand at DIY studs - then I'd have the T7 for snowy days and the Tracer for clear cold days. Couldnt justify studding the tires on an only bike as it'd degrade clear road performance too much.

Hah I mean, I'm kind of there now too. I've owned pretty much everything over the years. Well, each of the big 4, and Harley, but my "buying new bikes instead of whatever used ones where available" period over the last 4 years or so has been all Yamaha. Simply put, best value proposition and class leading products. Also the most reliable, but admittedly only a little vs the other Japanese makes. MT07 trumped the sv650, cbr650, and z700. Tracer had practically no real competition for what it is/price point it's at. The Tenere definitely doesn't. At this point the fact that I'm intimately familiar with working on these bikes and that there's so many shared parts (and even whole engines) really contributes too. What it's not though is "loyalty". If the Tenere was a Honda, I'd have bought a Honda. Some cool European bikes I'd love to try but they're wildly more expensive. A new Multistrada would be something I'd drop my Tracer in a heartbeat for.

The T7 is pretty unique in its place too, particularly once you account for value/price. Like the Tracer in its niche, really there's not a lot of serious competition in the space (more offroad focused dual sport/adventure) at that price. The new CRF250L looks pretty sweet too, but I couldn't see taking that on highways. Still, it's a neat bike and probably loads of fun offroad.

It's worth noting that this break point is largely vertical when mounting, so even if it's unusually weak, standing on the peg is putting some 90% of the load straight down, so it's only bearing a little weight laterally.

No, no other damage. I feel it's breaking was inevitable, rust or no rust inside, as there was a jeep pressing the bike backwards and directly into the kickstand. Something had to give. Honestly, breaking where it did was probably the best way to go because nothing else was damaged (like the mounts!) I will say, unequivocally, that even with the internal rust there, (were it not broken obviously) I'd absolutely trust it with my 300+lb mass hopping onto the bike via the footpeg. It's still very strong, just that physics where not in its favour when pushed by a reversing jeep.

For non load bearing/protective parts you want plastic, it's much lighter and weight is a critical factor. More expensive helmets tend to have more premium features and aftermarket support (see Shoei's alternate pads mentioned above), and be lighter but like everything else, just because something costs more doesn't inherently mean it's better. I mean, my modular gmax md01 is comfortable, has all removable pads, a heated dual pane visor, a dropdown sunshade, and has done very well for me over 3 or so years and some 40000 miles. It cost $400ish Canadian. It's a bit heavy and loud, though modular helmets in general are, but it's still ece 25 rated. *Shrugs* I've had helmets from about $800 down to $150. I'd say once you get out of the budget helmets, quality tends to level out and you start paying significant premiums for specific brand names and advanced features, and there's very quickly a drop off in terms of quality per dollar after around $500. To the point I often feel some very expensive helmets exist solely to cater to people who have money to burn and just Want The Best without looking at anything but the price tag.

Mine:

That's exactly what happened when my wife backed into mine - snapped the side stand, crash bars protected the rest.

Tenere's is way longer, due to the significantly increased ground clearance. I can't speak to the Africa twin, but the T7 is extremely stable and tracks like it's on rails. In that I was *extremely* surprised. With my throttle lock on I spent 5km with my hands off the bars at 120kph/75mph without any concern at all, corners, straights, bumps, the works. Its no Tracer - it's a wildly different machine - but it's extremely competent on road. Arguably better at low speed cornering, even. I wouldn't want to ride it like I ride my Tracer, but there's definitely no vagueness at all or sketchy feeling at speed. Bonus: at night, the headlights light the edges of the windscreen!