Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bond_yzf
As soon as it's run in I think the Kev mod,a pipe and filter are Gunna be ordered
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and it will be like having a new bike all over again !!
Glad to see you are enjoying the Ten. After many bikes over the years, the Tenere is the longest (sorry second longest) surviving bike in the garage. I usually get bored after 2 - 3 years and go for a change, had the Ten since June 2008 and I still love it. Had a brief affair with a XJR1300 but despite the performance, it just wasn't as good as the Ten and only really got out when the missis wanted to come with me. The XJR was morphed into a px on a Landrover earlier this year!
The only other bike that has outlasted the Tenere is a TTR but she is a dirt-only ride, so it's not fair to compare.
Over the years I've used the Tenere for everything, within a couple of months of picking her up I'd covered over 8000 miles through Europe, riding from the UK to the Arctic, to Greece and over to Portugal. With nothing more than a roadside oil change someplace north of Thressaloniki she performed faultessly, even managing the whole trip on a single set of Tourances (and fully loaded too). In 2010 a few of us took soem Teneres into Portugal where we covered ~800 miles of dirt, as well as the road rde from the four corners of England and Ireland to Spain (via the ferry), and the long haul from south Portugal back to the north of England. Again, she never missed a beat (which is more than can be said about the rider), other than taking on a small puncture.
I personally think this bike is good at everything, but not great. OK, it lacks top end speed, but it reaches the legal limits without any drama, and it will ride at them too, for days on end if the rider can take it. It's frugal, a couple of years ago I rode up to Skye with a couple of mates who all had big naked bikes. The p!$$ was taken out of me for taking the Tenere over the XJR, they did say they would wait for me when they go there though. The very fact I could have rode the entire trip on a single tank of juice (but chose to top up at the Green Welley), and the comfort of the riding position meant that I was in Skye 30 minutes before them as they needed to stop for fuel and comfort breaks. A GS or Varadero would have done the same thing with a little more power, so like I say, it's a good bike but not great.
Off tarmac the bike will out perform the likes of the GS and Varaderos, but not smaller dirt bikes, again good but not great.
Every bike has it's faults and let downs, and for some people they want things better in some areas than others. If you want road performance over anything else then the Tenere isn't for you. If you want trail ability with no road riding, then the Tenere isn't for you. If you want to be able to go anywhere, then the Tenere is the best bike for the job.
As the old saying goes, "You can go fast, I can go anywhere"