Dakar Rally - Yamaha Motor

When I was told the ‘boys in blue’had been in touch I quicklypacked a bag and scrambled

my passport ready to hide in the far eastcorners of Kazakhstan, having recently beentesting a multitude of mind-bendingly fastlitre sportsbikes. Fortunately it turned out thereference was a nod to Yamaha’s Tenere 700experience day over in Wales. I know whatyou’re thinking; off-road, big heavy bike, sexappeal akin to Susan Boyle clad in BridgetJones’ granny pants winking at you fromworryingly close quarters in the pub youfrequent... and on the face of it I would haveto agree with you. However bear with me,because it turns out SuBo has somefunctional tricks up her sleeve which mayjust have a stronger effect than the beergoggles you would ordinarily need!

As I drove through the world’s tightestroads where riding a supermoto would feellike driving an artic through a congested highstreet, I began to consider what I may be in

for throughout the day ahead. To give a bit ofcontext to my two-wheeled endeavours, Itook to riding on the slippery brown stuffafter spending plenty of years on the tarmac,which in turn incurred a pretty steep learningcurve consisting of pulling grass out of myteeth, gravel from my arms andpredominantly, the bike off the floor, many,many times. Unfortunately, riding asportsbike on the road or track does not inany way, shape or form correlate tocompetence off-road; it’s a whole new skillset and even a 250cc will have you exudingbrown smoke at the first twist of the throttle.Off-road riding didn’t come naturally to me; Ifelt I had started too late and gained toomany bad habits already. This, and an innatedetermination to go at things full tiltfollowing the old ‘If in doubt, flat out’ advicealways seemed to result in a sloppyencounter, and not the type you wouldbrag to your mates about. However, with abit of perseverance and some awesome

coaching from guys similar to the Yamahaoff-road experience, my confidence grewand now my holidays are spent in theIsle of Man, Wales and the Yorkshire Moors,ripping across the natural landscapes on myJohnson extension of a KTM 450 EXC.So with that in mind, a reasonable amountof anticipation set in as to what a big,204kg 700cc bruiser would be like across thetight, technical rocky trails and rock gardensI’m used to making an absolute hash of onmy usual competition bike of literally halfthat weight, or rather whether we wouldeven be attempting such harsh terrain?All I could envisage was a bigger, nastier,more painful crash combined with aconsiderably larger amount of effort toget to that inevitable compound fracture.Still, if there’s anywhere to barrel rollyourself and a bike down to an early grave,the amazing views within the Welsh forestswe were set to rip up offered the perfectplace to do it!

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DAKARFOR ADIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

W O R D S : J A C K T H O M P S O N P I C S : G A R Y B A R N E S

Like the idea of racing the Dakar Rally but don’t have the budget oor tthhe balls? Yamaha’snew Tenere 700 experience might be just the thing for you. We sent Jack to check it out

061 Off Road Yamaha Tenere_FBK370.indd 61 03/08/2020 07:43:44

The Yamaha off-road experience wasoriginally known as the Geraint Jones EnduroSchool, founded in 1994 by Geraint Joneshimself, who was a 10-times-over Britishenduro champion and holds eight ISDE goldmedals, a pretty impressive accolade. It isnow predominantly run by his two sonsDylan and Rowan, who are also ex-top levelchampionship-winning racers and predictablylightning fast on a bike, while making it lookfrustratingly easy... If it wasn’t for the factthey were such nice chaps, their riding wouldhave made me instantly dislike them throughsheer jealousy! The school runs from theirfarm in Llanidloes and as far as back gardenplaygrounds go, you won’t win a game of toptrumps against the Joneses as they have full

exclusive access to the 10,000 acres of HafrenForest for you to play in; this is off-limits tothe general public so unless you’re on theirday, you aren’t getting in legally. The schooloffers five experience packages for you tochoose from, ranging from complete beginnerlevel tuition on either the Yamaha TTR/WRrange or the Tenere 700, right up to bespoketuition for hardened enduro riders looking tofine-tune their skills with knowledge from theguys right at the top of their game. It’s worthnoting that due to the private land on theoff-road experience, you don’t actually need alicence but you will have to demonstrate youcan ride a bike, or at least advise them you’rea total newbie! I was invited along tospecifically do the Tenere 700 experience

which you do need a licence for and is pricedat £260 for the day or £460 for two days. Forthis, you’re equipped with the latest Yamahaenduro clothing, body armour, helmet, bootsand gloves, a fully fuelled and preppedTenere, and full instruction for the dayincluding a pub lunch where, depressingly,alcohol wasn’t an option, and they won’taccept: “It calms my nerves!” as an excuse. Ifyour parents didn’t slip any Miracle-Gro intoyour baby milk, the school do have severallowered bikes using a Yamaha genuine partslinkage kit and seat, which turns the Tenereinto a mere BMX in comparison, so you’veno need to worry about dealing with a tallbike through the tough stuff, as well as tryingto keep your vital organs in the same place asthey started the day.

With the first obstacle being squeezing mypost-lockdown junk into an older, wider pairof riding pants overcome, our morningbriefing explained how the day would unfold.We were reminded that the purpose of thisbike and this experience is adventure riding,in other words being able to cover largedistances in comfort while tackling somereasonable off-road obstacles. To that end,the guys had made some slight modificationsto the standard Tenere; from the Yamahagenuine parts catalogue, they had fitted abigger bash plate/sump guard and crash bars,and binned the dual purpose standard PirelliScoorrppiioonn SSTTRRss, rreeppllaacciinngg tthheemm wwiitthh DDuunnlloopp’ssD908 Rally Raids which are a much moreofff-road-biased tyre. With all that in mind, Iexppected some loose fire roads at best andsomme long miles in the saddle... how wrong I

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Follow the leader.


TENERE 700 EXPERIENCE

was. Where this school excels is by cateringfor the group it has at the time, there’s no‘one size fits all’ approach which ensureseveryone gets the best out of their day.Everyone attending had reasonably goodoff-road experience so there was no need forany chat about the basics of off-road riding interms of body position, clutch control, brakingetc. However on a normal day full tuitionwould be given where relevant and the levelsgradually increased to suit, aided by a vastarray of experienced instructors. The Tenere isequipped with a small functional dash, whichallows you to put it into ‘off-road mode’ withthe press of a button. This disengages thetraction control and turns the ABS off which isvital for when things get a bit loose underfoot,plus you need to be able to lock the rearwheel in certain scenarios. For example – toget turned around, to save yourself down asteep descent, or even more crucially... ifthere’s a camera in the near vicinity andyou’re in need of that all-important sidewayspicture to show your mates who the real riderof the group is. So with the bike in fullunaided “You’re on your own, mate!” mode,we headed straight up a steep gravel bankdirectly out the back of their farm into theheaven of the Welsh forests, where we baskedin rare and surprising Welsh sunshine andwere greeted by the most endless stunningscenery I’ve seen for quite some time. It didn’tttaakkee llong to feel like I was on an all-inclusiveadvennture holiday across Spain, yet withindrivinng distance from home, for a more thanreasoonable cost.

Inittially I felt the bike to be a bit numb


NEED TO KNOW INFO…

What? Yamaha Tenere 700 Experience

Where? Glynhafren, Old Hall, Llanidloes, Powys, Wales SY18 6PS

When? Dates viewable on website

How? Clothing, protection, bike and lunch provided.

Contact details – 01686 413324/[email protected]

Hooligan.

Jack thought he was on a speedway bike.

Team Tenere.


and lacking in feel, and I began to wonderwhat it was that Yamaha were trying to proveby sending us out here to ride it, but afteraround just 20 minutes I very much found outwhy they had invited us. It took no time at allto discover that the initial feeling I had waspurely my rustiness, having not riddenoff-road since February and probably also dueto passing the time concentrating on the localpie-eating competitions. The most astonishingthing about this perceptively big heavy bike ishow agile and capable it is across the roughstuff. As I alluded to earlier, I anticipated thatfire tracks would be the limits of this bike’scapabilities, but they weren’t even a warm-upfor what it was capable of athletically pullingitself through! Any weight you first feel whenyou get on it soon disappears when you get afeel for it, allowing me to do sharp pivot turnswith ease and place the bike exactly where Iwant it through ruts, rocks and any other

usual face-planting invitations the ground hasto offer. Before I knew it I was skipping acrosswhoops through narrow clearances in thetrees on the back wheel, thinking: “How thehell is this not crying underneath me,bottoming out, tying itself in knots and tryingto buck me off like a mentally unstable rodeobull?!” Even early on in the day I was totallyflabbergasted by what it was capable oftaking in its stride, and I really should pressthe point home that we were absolutely notdoing a gentle Sunday green-lane ridestopping for regular wee breaks, coffees,bacon butties and casual chats while takingin the views. My mindset going into thisexperience was very much that I should takethe bike to the limits of my ability withinreason, and see how it fared against a solepurpose-built machine; what I was rewardedwith from the bike was nothing short ofastounding. One of the strongest attributes of

this bike is its twin 700cc engine, packing aplentiful 72bhp and bags of predictable,usable torque. It has enough grunt to catchyou out if you’re overly excitable with yourright wrist, yet a smooth enough powerdelivery to allow you to slide all day long atbig speeds without worrying that your rearwill overtake the front and leave you lookinglike a turbo-knob in front of your mates.There isn’t much that the chassis of theTenere couldn’t handle either; we coveredsteep rocky hill climbs and descents, trailslined with rocks the size of Eddie Hall’shead, stream crossings and boggy lanes andnone of it seemed to faze the plucky Yam;the only obvious sign of the fact you weretackling harsh terrain was that of the tinnydrum beat coming from the bash plate due tothe rocks constantly flicking off it – verymuch ‘In the air tonight’... how apt!

That said, it’s not an all-out enduro bike

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Jack didn't have theminerals to go down thewater slide.


TENERE 700 EXPERIENCE

and it does therefore have its limitations, as Istarted to discover after a few hours gettingused to it. If you’re a motocross GP rider withtestes the size of footballs, had your brainremoved at birth and you were hoping tocome and lay down some big fat whips whilebeing 20 feet in the air, you probably won’tbe surprised to hear this isn’t the bike foryou. A badly managed jump of anything overaround five feet high will see the Tenerebottom out with relative ease and attempt torearrange your internal organs upon landing,and sure, in the tight twisty technical trailsyou will absolutely feel the weight of thebike. However, a little perspective if you will?When I spoke with Rowan about thecompetencies and limitations of the Tenereone of the key things he said which resonatedwith me was that you could quite happilyrock up to an enduro event full of lightweightcompetition-focused bikes, and pull in a halfdecent result if you were a good rider – prettyimpressive for a road bike with someknobblies, don’t you think? If he had saidthis to me at the start of the day I would havelaughed, but having spent a very comfortableeight hours in the saddle, across the best partof 130 miles, a full tank of fuel and a tonneof laughs later, I can wholeheartedly agreewith that statement, and I tell you something,it would ruffle a few feathers while you wereat it! This actually leads me on to my nexthuge revelation with this bike. Like mostpeople, whenever I ride off-road I sufferterribly with arm pump, and it’s a constantbattle to try and keep things under control asI lose the feeling and regain it (or not, as thecase tends to be). With the Tenere, not onlydid I have a comfier seat, a screen, moreweather protection, more road capability anda complete lack of ‘KTM-Arse’ as I call it...

INTERVIEW WITH ROWAN JONESHow do you maximiseperformance of big bikesvs enduro bikes?

The first thing to highlight is what they’rebuilt for; the big bikes are primarilydesigned to cover distance both on andoff-road and ride to your set destination.While the big bikes are still very capable youdo have to be aware that they are still circa200 kilos, so things are okay to a certainpace, but it’s about covering the ground asopposed to racing the ground, becausewhen things go wrong there’s a fair bitmore weight to try and save. You’re lookingto get squarer and straighter for theobstacles you aim to tackle, but really youhave to go in with the mindset of gettingthrough and travelling from A to B ratherthan racing to the end destination. Groundclearance is certainly an improvement onthe previous Yamaha models, but you stillneed to read the terrain differently from apurpose-built enduro bike.

Does size matter?Size does absolutely matter, because if youdo get a very big, heavy and clumsy bike(which the Tenere 700 isn’t), it is quitelimiting as to where you can go andcertainly the speed at which you travel.Time of year, weather and the type of trailare also limiting factors for the heavierbikes. If the trail is firm, rock based andstone it’s surprising where you can go on abig bike, but if the trail becomes particularlymuddy and soft, the dual-purpose tyres onmost big adventure bikes and their weightwill limit where you can get to. Withadventure bikes the question is always:“What do you want to do with it?” becausethere is always a compromise between thetarmac and the trails, and you need to workout what ratio suits you and therefore whatbike to go for. Conversely the huge upsideto adventure bikes is that what they’recapable of is so broad, but it won’t excel inone specific area.

How important istyre choice?From an adventure and off-road point ofview tyre choice is critically important. TheTenere 700 has a reasonably capabledual-purpose road-going tyre as standard,but we run Dunlop’s D908 Rally Raid tyreswhich were developed for a Dakar-styleenvironment and are a pretty aggressivetrail tyre. The trade-off is that they’re notgreat on the road, and particularly on thewet tarmac today they don’t inspireconfidence, however as soon as you hit thetrails which is the main aim for us, they’re avery competent tyre. Most brands do adual-purpose tyre, but again the choice isbased on where you want yourperformance because there will always be atrade-off and a compromise.

What mods from thestandard bike do you doto suit the school?

Very little really, as you’ve discoveredtoday the new Tenere 700 is a very

competent bike out of the crate. At themoment we change the tyres, use a biggersump guard and wrap around crash bars,both available from the Yamaha genuineparts catalogue. This is purely because as aschool we cater for all levels of ability, andit’s fairly inevitable that the bikes will hit thedeck at some stage. We have one bike withan Akra ‘can to try, and we may play aroundwith the settings on the rear shocks atsome stage to try to firm them up to assistthe bike across the rougher choppier terrainand the bigger jumps.

Which bike would youprefer to ride out of theYamaha range?Again it completely depends on what youwant to do with it, every bike has a purposeand an area that it excels. At the moment Ireally enjoy riding the Tenere 700 becauseit’s new, fresh and surprisingly capable. Youcan do loads of stuff with it you wouldn’texpect and I always get off them with a biggrin on my face. Obviously if you’re going torace technical enduro it wouldn’t be thebike to take, but there’d be something quitecool about turning up on one and beingreasonably competitive on something thatlooks like it really should never be there!Outside of that for me, probably the WR250predominantly because of my physical sizeand stature. It’s the sort of bike I’ve spent alot of time racing on, and I feel I’m the bossof that rather than it being the boss of me,whereas the WR450 can bite a little bit! Butagain, if you’re doing a lot of rally typeriding/trail riding/fast fire road sections, theWR450 comes into its own. We ride a lot inthe winter doing technical trails in thehorrible snotty wet conditions where gettingstuck can be a frequent experience, so the250s are perfect for that.

What are your thoughts onthe new Tenere vsthe previous models?We’ve been using two models prior to theTenere 700, the XTZ1200 Super Tenerewhich is a much bigger bike in a differentcategory and considerably more roadfocused, and also the XT660 which is asingle-cylinder, tried and tested, provenmodel but been around a long time and isold technology now. The new Tenere 700 isa twin based on the MT-07 which is aproven engine and provides a muchsmoother power delivery with no vibration,and feels like modern technology. It’s morecomfortable and certainly more capableoff-road than the old XT660, so with thenew bike it’s going to allow us to do morewith it, go to different places and give thecustomers an even better experience. Thebike is night and day different really, it’smore akin to an off-road competition bike inits handling and feel. I’ve no idea what theweight difference is between the 700 andthe old 660 and it’s probably notdramatically different, but to ride them theyfeel miles apart. The new bike is moremanoeuvrable, flick-able, and you can slideit around whereas the 660 still feels a bittired and numb now.



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nnoott once did I get the dreaded arm pumpwhich waass iinncredibly refreshing, and allowedme to enjoy the WWellsshh tterrain at decent speedwithout any concerns of a longg vviissit to A&Evia the yellow air chopper and a veryunhappy man in a corporate blue T-shirt.Possibly the most entertaining part of the dayand a real harsh test for the bike was right atthe end, where myself and Rowan headedinto the trees again in search for some biggerjumps. This time he really wasn’t muckingaround, and I found myself throwing all sortsof comical ’80s dance shapes on the biketrying to keep up with this enduro legend,having only a view of his rear light throughthe dust he was ripping up while looking likehe was popping to the shops to get milk... Iattempted to play it cool when we stopped,though I think the panting may have giventhe game away.

So maybe your holiday plans have gonetits-up this year, maybe due to the virusyou’re fancying trying something new,maybe you’re bored of trail riding in yourlocal area and just maybe you’re intriguedas to how much fun you can have on a bigbike off-road and you don’t quite believewhat I’m writing? I can honestly say if I wasto go back to the Yamaha off-road experienceand I had a choice between the WR450(which is pretty close to my usual steed), ortaking the Tenere out again, I would chosethe Tenere all day long. There’s somethingincredibly satisfying about taking a big bikelike that and going places you really oughtnot to be able to go on it.

Fancy a go? Head over to www.yamaha-offroad-experience.co.uk to check out whatthey have to offer. Bookings are currentlytaken over the phone and the Tenere days arefilling fast... I know I’ll be back for more.

Learning fromthe best.

He's just showingoff now.


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Dakar Rally - Yamaha Motor