Tenere Confusion
 

A Tenere Touring has just appeared on the UK website. It includes Panniers, Hand Guards and a Centre Stand. According to the Specs its seat height is only 865mm at the cost of reduced suspension travel.
This seat height is the same for the European ABS model. It does not say if the UK version has ABS ?

Does anyone own one of these models with the lower seat and reduced suspension, have you rode it off road ?

It is basically a European XT660ZA, but without the ABS. The ABS Ten was imported for only one year in the UK and nobody bought one! However, a lot of people in the UK do want lower suspension/seat height. So the Touring is an obvious model for the UK.

I recall there are several members with ABS Teneres in Scandinavia. I'm sure one of them will pop along and give you an insight into the off-road capabilities with the lower suspension.

Yeah, I've got the ABS version, XT660ZA. I love the bike, but if I could do it over I would have gone for the non-ABS version (actually, if it was today I'd go for KTM 690 Enduro R but thats a different story:) . ABS doesn't have adjustable front forks and only preload on the back. There are also other *stupid* things that I don't think the normal XT660Z has, like you have to remove the whole tank(!!) to get to the battery, as well as *no* space under the seat.

Other random things I can think of - suspension is harder on the ABS model, tank is slightly different so the key is quite annoying to turn and take out.

I don't know why people want bikes like this to be lower. I mean, it's an adventure bike, you'd want it to be as tall as possible, otherwise you may as well buy a tourer.

Thanks for your responses.

865 mm seat is the maximum I can manage, have short legs. I may buy the standard version and fit a lower seat. Touratech do one -20mm.

Thanks again.

You can get lowering links too for the standard one. A few of the guys run them and seem to do fine off road with. How much they drop the bike by though im not sure and I assume the standard shock would become stiffer if you lowered the bike??

I have the projection components lowering links on mine and they are fine, I cant remember how much I lowered it by but its about 30mm ish, I will have to go in the garage and dig the instructions out, they were about 40 quid and have different ride heights, only problem I have had was sidestand angle because I never cut it down so have to be careful where I park!

I can't for the life of me see the point of lowering the bike. Even if it was 150 cm tall you could still stop at lights and get one foot down, you don't need to stand flatfooted with both feet at every red light. If you're going to compromise the offroad capabilities of the bike, why not buy an ER6N or something then? Offroad you're *supposed* to tip over a bunch anyway :)