Just got back from riding from Bilbao to Calais on my new '09 Tenere. Bought new from Chorley Yamaha on 3 years 0%.

The plan was to fit my existing Krauser K3 panniers as they do the click-lock removeable pannier frames for the Tenere. Unfortunately the UK importer seem pretty useless and couldn't find the parts in the catalog and didn't call back after saying they were going to contact Krauser in Germany.

Anyway, because of this I went for the Yamaha panniers and topbox, despite what Yamaha say about not fitting both at once. I've had no problems! I had to repair one lock on the ferry though and new locks are on order under warranty.

Also got an Oxford Sport tankbag with the base for non-magnetic tanks. Fits OK, is expandable and seems well put together.

I fitted Barkbusters VPS MX handguards with the plastic fitting kit that comes with them. These are OK as all I wanted to do was keep a bit of wind and rain off my hands. I had to shuffle the levers in by about 10mm, but I can live with that. At �25 I can't complain. Plus when I went down to Dennis Winter to buy them they let me try them out and lent me the tools to make sure they would fit. They have an eBay shop too if anyone else wants some.

A set of 1" bar risers that I had lying around also went on, but the throttle cables were only 'just' long enough.

The bike had it's first service before I went and all in all it coped pretty well. Cruising speed anywhere between a genuine 70mph and 80mph (I also fitted a speedo healer and a GPS). MPG anything between 45mpg and 65mpg. The main limiting factor was the load on the back tyre as this got pretty hot and wore faster the faster I went. We were erm... a bit overloaded! Yamaha say 196KG, well I weigh about 98KG, can't divulge the weight of the Mrs! And we had about 25KG of luggage. The suspension is too soft and underdamped, though the handling is OK if you remember this, certainly not as bad as my old FZ6 in the same situation until I fitted an Ohlins shock. I would say that the back tyre is about 50% worn at 2400 miles, but should last a lot longer with just me on the bike, or just me and the Mrs.

The best bit about changing to the XT was the bottom end grunt and mid range for firing between hairpins in the mountains. This was the kind of road that was very frustrating on my last bike, an FZ6, when loaded up in the same way. The engine has definitely loosened up and pulled much better and was smoother coming back up the A1 than it did on the way down. If it used any oil I didn't notice and the chain didn't need touching. All I did was put petrol in it!

When I pulled up for a break on the way down to Portsmouth I found oil all over the tank. This turned out to be from one of the vent screws undoing itself on the forks. Luckily for me I'd thrown a multi-tool in the topbox that had the correct allen wrench in it. Panic over. The horn also fell off later in France, though this was my fault as I knew I should have swapped out the plain nut and lockwasher for a nyloc nut when I fitted a Stebel horn before I left.

Changes I'll make now I've got back are the Givi screen, heated grips and stiffer springs and thicker oil in the forks, maybe even an Ohlins rear shock.

Also planning on a power commander, airbox mod and Leo Vince pipes.