Originally Posted by uberthumper

Utterly different bike.

The 690 would come out great in a road test where the tester only rode it for a couple of hours. It's a good 50kg (25%) lighter, better suspension, 50% more power.

As a 'fun' bike, or something to use for UK rallies, etc, that assessment would be fairly accurate. I don't want to knock them as they are cracking bikes for that purpose. If I could justify having a bike purely for doing the rallies, then it would only be my dislike of "doing the obvious" that would stop that bike being a 690, because they really are in a class of their own as a "big bore enduro bike", particularly now the Husky TE630 has been discontinued.


Perfectly possible to turn one into a good travel bike as well, and there's plenty of people who have done trips on them that make everything I've ever done look like a trip to the shops. But in the same way I've spent a fair amount turning my Tenere into something that works for racing, you would spend a lot turning a 690 into something with decent fuel range, luggage capacity, and wind protection.

The point I'm slowly getting to is that in any group test involving the Tenere, it will probably come out badly, because I don't think there's anything genuinely comparable on the market as a stock bike. The ~800cc multi-cylinder bikes are much bulkier, much more powerful, and much more road oriented. The likes of the 690 are smaller, lighter, and off-road-racing oriented.

The closest things to a comparable bike to test it against IMO are the likes of the XTR and the G650 Beemers. Don't have the tank range or wind protection, but if the Tenere didn't exist and I was after something as a do-it-all bike for commuting, trail riding, travelling, or if I had to buy a new, stock bike and head straight off on an overland trip, it would be something like that.

Now it may be that the review in Bike managed to capture all this, and acknowledge why it's not like a V-Strom or a Tiger - the people that have actually read it have said it's fairly complimentary.