Went for a ride a couple of weeks ago along single track twisty B roads where a 'good' speed seemed to be about the 50mph / 3 thou revs mark.
For me this speed/revs in top gear was a pain on this type of road - having to drop a gear as soon as the revs dropped slightly below the 3 thou mark. Its the first bike I've owned that made it known that it was not happy ( with that horrible piston slapping type sound - to my ear anyway! ) at revs as high as 3 thou or just under in top.
I am probably guilty of wrongly comparing it to larger capacity multi cylinder bikes but it was still a disappointment to me when doing the slower tarmac touring type stuff.
SO.......... While realising that a lot of Kevs mods would probably take care of this I have opted for changing the gearing - My mate Jim has just fitted a 14 th front sprocket to his and gave me a quick shot the other day - what a change! His bike now pulls cleanly from I'd say 2.2 thou on level ground and is eager to pull throughout the gears. I've not done the calculation re the speedo error but my guess is around 4 - 6mph with an increase of around 500- 750 revs I think.
I've read previous posts which point to the advantages for the off road side of things but I think it will be a great improvement for general touring too - aye maybe not so good for the longer motorway stuff but I do as little of that as possible anyway.
To sum up the order for a 14 tooth sprocket went in today and will be fitted after the lakes meet.

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Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big an wear glasses if you need em.

I think you hit the nail on the head, below a certain rev ( I dont know what that is as I have an XTX without a rev counter) and it makes the jerky, snatchy noises you mention, you just need to keep the revs above that zone, your solution will do the trick to suit your riding style, job done. I like to call it a feature!

I tackle it differently but as I have a heavily road biased X I need the longer legs the standard gearing offers. If it works for you then that is all that matters.

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I have mainly had only single cylinder bikes and you cannot get anything below 3K rpm.
My last two bikes were an SRX6, again 3 thousand rpm and a DR750, I even put a sticker on the rev counter!
I used to use a 14 tooth front sprocket for off roading on the Ten' but am now comfortable with the standard gearing.
This is a revvy engine and being 'over square' will not thump along but you do have to use the gearbox. I can ride mine without the rev counter and keep within the power band quite comfortably. I think you will find this with most of the old guys like me who have been brought up on old machinery, I would even say that the rev counter is wasted on me, I could blank it off completely and still ride the bike comfortably!.....but then that's me!

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I'm going to disagree with Steve here.

The Tenere does have that horrible piston-slappy-kango-type thing at low revs and I always just accepted it as life. I fitted a DNA (S1 &S2) and a PC-V, still does it at low revs.

However, since ditching the OE can and fitting a nice shiney MTC single can the bike pulls from around 2k nice and even. I put this down to the expert fiting of a tool tube , or maybe the fact the bike can exhale better now, In any case it is possible to deal with it.

The 14T front, I also have tried one of these, and to be honest I couldn't wait to take it off again. Kev constantly maintains that the key to the 660 motor is to let it breath, and it realy does make a huge difference. I know it's more ��� than a �15 sprocket, but when you take the bike over the 5K rpm mark you will notice a huge drop in MPG.

Tenere Doug and me had similar bike/ride weights, I had the DNA/PC and Doug had the Akrapo's/K&N, but I was still using around a litre of fuel more on a tank full than him - only real differece was the sprocket and the fact I was always running higher revs in the same speed range.

But at the end of the day, we are all different, so if you've found a solution then that's great, as long as you are happy it doesn't matter about anyone else.

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the engine is by far the least flexible/most hardwork that I have ever had but I got used to it and, to be fair, there were only 5 gears and the gearbox was smooth.

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I am taking the easy option I suppose and in the long term improving the engines breathing (exhaust and air intake) is the way to go as Kev has pointed out, but.........yes the old �ssss is one of the factors I've got to think of these days.
But yes for me I think it will work as I'm not a straight A-B person these days and like to take in the scenery. I will spend 95% of my time on the smaller A roads, B roads, tracks and off road so I wont be around the 5k revs in top much, if at all. Its just that 50mph / 3krpm point I want to improve if I can.
I'll bang it on and take it from there - its a quick job to refit the 15th if I'm not happy.Cheers guys.

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Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big an wear glasses if you need em.