Well I have owned the Tenere for a month now so thought I would put pen to paper so to speak.

Brakes - Ok, had to tweak the front preload suspension to give the brakes a little more feel (remove a little of the soft front end). Helped enough for them to be ok now. I guess a trail bike does not want XTX levels of braking performance and it certainly has not got it. 6/10

Suspension - Rear 9/10, I have not ridden off road yet but on road it has performed ok. the front had adjustable preload and its ok. 9/10

Handling - Wind! or shall I say the Tenere is hugely affected by the wind. Today I rode in medium wind and rain and it was not a pleasant experience. I have a turbulance stopper so dont really know how bad it can be and I ride with a road type full face helmet. Best not to dawdle behind lorrys as the buffetting is immense. Its pretty stable under braking and I am still learing its limits. 6/10

Engine - Sweet as a nut with enough power for me. No surge what so ever. 10/10

Vibes - Considering its a 660 single its great. 10/10

Tyres - Michelin Sirac - In a word horrible. To be fair the rear has squared off a bit so its not a huge help in assessing them. Riding in rain is not a good experience. I want a road biased tyre next. I plan to fit the Avon Distanzia's. 4/10

Looks - Marmite. 9/10

Comfort - The seat is poor. Holds you in an unnatural position. After every ride so far I have had a back ache. Hoping I get used to it. Considered a contour change but want to keep the bike as stock as possible. That said its got the great XT upright postion that commands the road space. 7/10

Weight - Its a little heavy for serious off road IMHO. Its good at high speed though so swings and roundabouts. 6/10

Overall - Happy so far 'ish, need to tweek the ride height down I think (possibly just the front). At first I thought I could handle the Tenere's height but the truth has hit home now. At 6ft (me) the Tenere is too big and if I venture offroad then it will be too much of a handful and I guess I will drop it constantly. I need to live with it a little more. I guess I wont be venturing off road.

I dont plan to modify the bike (from what it currently is) at all so if it cannot be tweaked to satisfaction it stays as it is.

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Nice one Tony, I can see in a nutshell that you would greatly benefit from a seat reshaping, if you get someone to unstitch the vinyl cover and remove the "hump" you will then get a lower riding position, much greater confidence off road when the bike goes sideways as you would have feet ready to be planted on the ground and, all you need to do for the front is to lower the the fork legs distance by adjusting the yoke to your required meaurement.

Then apply the "Law of Kev-relativity" i.e. heavier grade oil in the fork and set of spacers will make the action perfect for your requirements. I would have suggested a set of high performance coil springs such as ohlins but you don't want to mod it too much. Yet springs and seat can be easily and quite cheaply returned to original.

oh... and slap a set of Distanzia on that beast pronto!

I was holding off as I am a little skint at the moment but I may have to do that sooner rather than later as a good set of boots will help massively.

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Originally Posted by Tony660z I was holding off as I am a little skint at the moment but I may have to do that sooner rather than later as a good set of boots will help massively.

Hi Tony,i like the way you did your report ,i would just do the boots for the time being if funds are short because this time of year you need to trust your grip levels ,

You are both right, I have ordered a full set of Avon Distanzias. I am going to drop the front suspension a little and tweek the preload. Hopefully that will help. I may soften the rear a little as well.

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Hi Tony - Lowering link bones are available for the rear (simple to fit/replace), and like you say, dropping the forks though the yokes a little should get the height a little more to your liking?

I'm surprised you don't rate the brakes very highly? - I would say they are excellent for that style of bike - very progressive but not too grabby? Sure there is an amount of dive from the front end, but that is only to be expected when you consider the suspension... I appreciate it can be personal preference, but I'd rather use more of the lever travel and have more control before locking up? - especially away from the tarmac!

And when the opportunity arises, I think you'll be surprised how manageable it is off-road, as long as you consider it's physical size and weight - it ain't no WR of course!

Jenny xx

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"Where we're going, we don't need roads..."

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Jmo- re brakes they are ok and I most certainly agree you need progressive brakes off road and not to powerful. I feel it takes alot of lever effort to get a reasonable braking force into the system on road though. I have upped the front preload and adjusted the dial on the front brake. I think I need to retune myself to it. Trouble is I have just spent the last 6 months on a mountain bike and the brakes and weight are obviously not comparable etc so the bulk of the XT is a factor. Re the dive on the front, I actually love long travel soft suspension. In fact I may dial out the preload again.

Re suspension, The previous owner dropped the front forks down and I returned them to stock positions. On reflection it was much much better the way he had it so I plan to return the drop ASAP. That also helped with the ride height. The height is close to perfect so a minor tweak on the rear may just do it for me. If not then I will go for the dog bones idea as its a simple easy to return to stock solution. As I say I dont need to much so small changes in small steps is all that is required.

I think the tyres will help as well as me putting alot more ride time in on it. Overall I love the bike and am glad I have it. I am being really picky and I dont wish to put any others off in any way.

Thank you for the info, as always you are a top forum poster.

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I've had the occasion to use the brakes pretty hard on the motorway a few times and certainly felt the front getting pretty squirally without obviously noticing that I really had to squeeze the lever hard. Certainly I was worried more about locking the front, while stopping in time than the force required.

Certainly the sports bikes I've ridden (Fazer 600, TDM 900) with R1 inspired brakes give signifantly more feel and qualitatively I would say they are better. I feel most of this is down to the suspension however (hense my suggestion to up the pre-load on the front) and uprating the springs/forks should help you get more of the feel that the brembo brakes should be able to provide.

I'd be interested to see if JMo things changing the suspension on her rally bike made the braking feel any better (I know the bike only has a single disc now but would still be interesting to get some feedback after such a radical change)

That said I think the brakes are pretty good, they just feel different to a sports bike, let alone a mountain bike.

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I'm a similar height (6 foot) and also cycled alot so deliberately chose the tenere because of it's great height. On a push bike you get used to balancing on one tip-toe only so it felt more natural to me and I've developed the reactions over several years to get my leg/foot out quickly if required. I certainly had one interesting instance early on at a junction to a main road turning right where the left hand side of the road slopes down very sharply (coming downhill to join a hill going uphill) where I found myself well out of my seat to get my foot down, trying to keep my bike balanced and with my foot slowly sliding down the slope on the wet winter tarmac. If my friend had taken much longer at the junction himself i'd probably have tumbled off in a rather undignified mess and rolled into the main road with the bike following me.
The ride height and position have certainly taken me a long time to get fully used to but now the suspension has worn I'm now often find I feel it is too low! Again it's something you do get used to but being able to reach the ground easier does give more confidence (and riding a bike well is a lot about confidence isn't it? - if you think you're going to fall you tense up giving less contoal and making it more likely you will, as well as being less fun). Bottom line is I guess I'm saying that at 6 foot (32" inside leg) the Tenere is quite manageable but you might need to spend lots of time with it before you feel that confident. Even my short stint on more sporty loan bikes for ages I felt more confident more easily than I was on the Tenere. Now after a year I feel unconfident on the sports bikes

The siracs' start behaving quite badly once they square off which is why I replaced mine with 3mm tread still left in the centre (after 11.5k miles). It made quite a difference although I still found them good in corners and their wet weather grip was still excellent - WHEN they were warm). I've been much happier with my BT45s or the Anakee I currently have on the rear.

Also don't forget to remove the rubber on the footpegs if you have not alreday, makes a big difference.

I agree - the brakes on my Ducati Monster (not Tenere Monster eh?) are pin sharp, and together with road-biased suspension, the difference is incredible - you forget how good roadbike brakes are these days!

As for the changes I've made, it's hard to quantify as I've only ever tested that set up with a front Michelin Desert which, as anyone who's seen one will know - is the most gnarly front tyre you'd want on a bike weighing 170+Kgs...

My front brake is certainly a lot 'softer' than the original set up - very nice and progressive (the last thing I wanted was the front locking up and washing out on the dirt/sand), and in the wet, you do need to use a fair bit of back brake too - but like I say, that is more down to running on full-on knobblies, not TKC type (or more road biased) tyres...

Depending on my plans next year, I may fit a set of TKCs to the Tenere again, and that will give a more accurate comparison... certainly the new suspension is sublime - soaks up all the little imperfections, handles big hits, and yet doesn't pogo under braking or anything - worth the money? For me yes, certainly - it's transformed the bike! (together with the Ohlins rear shock)...

xxx

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"Where we're going, we don't need roads..."

JennyDakar.com