My criticism strikes again.
We all have seen those kind of "travelers" who always try to imply that they do what they are doing, for us the rest of the lesser people.
Few months ago I was reading how such a specimen was bubbling on Facebook about how hard is for him to travel, how many ordeals he needs to endure in order to bring us pictures. Then come home dear, no one sent you there!
How should I put it ... since the edge of civilization people traveled, some more, some less. Some even wrote books about their travels and about the cultures they encountered. Some of those writings are today the only source of historical relevance about a certain place and a certain time.
Later, when we discovered that we can make money out of it, some traveled and continued to write books about their travels. They got money by selling them, maybe they sponsored their next trip with the money from the books. Who knows?!?
There were always people who traveled for themselves and others who traveled to show off. I have no problem with both of them, each on its own they say. I have a absolute repulsion on the next stage, the modern traveler - beggar - prostitute.
If we look at details, every time we can find an excuse: what is wrong that X got sponsored by XZY company? What is wrong that some people donate to some other guy? And actually none of these are wrong! I mean I do not preach here that no one should get something unless every one gets it too, this is small minded.
What I really hate is the big picture, and let's look at it:
One guy or girl, quits the job and suddenly is being sponsored by not one, not two but more companies. Ok ... not that if you would ask any of those companies to get something, you will get it for free, even if you travel a lot.
Now, he / she has a tip-top bike with bleeding edge tech, top of the range clothing (we, the foot-folk will be happy with just half of it or with half of the money they cost so we can get fully equipped).
Some shipping companies even give a discount based on .... I do not know exactly why and how.
Now the trip starts .... he / she will travel in a part of the world for x months. Every day you get to see amazing pictures. They say they do the images themselves, I can trust some of them, I can believe that they are struggling to get that amazing pic - I do it myself and I know how frustrating is when something goes wrong, but I prefer to travel rather than to play self glorification on Instagram.
Now the big questionmarks
1. How the hell they always get good weather - I want to see them soaked, full of mud - usually this is what I get when I travel, not endless days of beautiful sky.
2. How on earth do their bikes look every time like brand new - mine is like a pig after few days, with a bit of luck and rain from the first day.
3. Always some indigenous people are around their bike or on their bike doing nice pics - I may travel in the wrong places, usually I end up with some homeless guys telling me the story of their life.
4. Why do they like to recommend parts and bike models - easy one, they would not spit on the face of their sponsors.
5. How that they get servicing first class even in the remote parts of the world, not to mention .... some of them for free - are you serious!?!?!
6. Are they able to do minor repairs on their own? I bet 90% no
7. Suddenly some locals start to show them hidden treasures of the country - ah ok .... suddenly someone says I make holidays because X is in tow so I can ride along. I do not know if we fit but what the heck ... I will get in the end a Instagram tag.
8. Real travel with having time to make video documentary, photo documentary and write a book ... these people are awesome can do more than we can .... ok ...
9. Where the hell they get internet in the middle of nowhere!?!?!
10. Where the hell do they get power supply .... editing a video takes time, rendering, cutting, post processing ... not to mention the time you work, the time you let the software do their rendering, loading all the devices ... Yes I know ... hotel and motorcycle battery ... but really, for months in the middle of nowhere!?!? how the hell you upload the video to YouTube, how the hell you update your blog daily ....
11. Are they really staying out camping or this is just for the picture, for the rest is the cosy hotel down the capital city.
12. How that their clothes look like new even after months of traveling with wild camping? This is a X files case for me.
Getting past those questions now comes the ugly personality side:
- asking money to continue travel - work you bitch, we all do, work and travel, there are people who do this, even if they take low jobs for one two three months somewhere, they spare to the last dime and then they have enough for the next leg of the travel. I respect those people.
- implying that they travel for me - seriously? I travel for myself, thank you!
- playing the victim card with how much they endure for that travel - go buck a fuffalo! Your choice, you can go home anytime now.
- opening all kind of virtual begging accounts - patreon, crowdfunding and so on ... duuude
- after the travel playing macho at all bikers meetings, being now a paid speaker and except the fact he gets money for this (shows the same ppt for years) sells also his junk overpriced stickers, books dvd
- no real human contact, unless you can be of interest - sexually or financially
- self importance
- expecting to be treated as V.I.P.
What is more disturbing is that they are setting trends, they are advertising overpriced shit which nobody needs actually, the bikes that they ride are not the most reliable but with the biggest price tag, some are talking that they even do not ride all the way, but pay a transport and then just make a picture - actually this explains the three questions I had - clean clothes, clean bike and internet all day.
And on top of that we are reminded gracefully that they are doing this for us!
Do you feel that someone is traveling for you? I certainly not and when I see pictures from the areas I have been, I can't notice that they are hanging mostly on tourist spots and kind of fake world where they are charged to make a picture with some local. After all I kind of feel sorry for them with regard to travel experiences. For the financial joker they try to pull on us ... I resent them. But that's life!
If you disagree .... Please pay for my next vacation!!!!!! I promise to send you pictures
Yamaha XT660Z Tenere - 20.000Km in 1.5 Years review
After 20.000 Km in one and half years with my beloved Tenere here is what I can say:
Height
Somehow seems / feels a bit lower - the feeling comes from two factors - 1. I got used with the height; 2. The saddle is now 20.000 Km old and is not so stiff, so I gained few mm through compression.
Higher weight / mass center
Is a thing which can be learned to cope with, but I still have issues with tight turns on mountain roads - issues meaning I do not trust it to drive too quick, especially on tight climbing corners where the front wheel seems to have a poor contact with the road surface. On descending corners it feels like it tends to under-steer since I do not trust it to get to inclined. So ... shortly said I tend to drive slower than with other bikes, but is also no racing machine so it does not bother so much anyways.
Higher ground clearance
Actually is useless most of the time, except the fact that you can show your knees to your fellow drivers of the city car species, maybe your boots to the face of sports car drivers, and have an equal eye-level with van drivers.
It comes handy when you get off-road? Yes and no, except when you need to pass over some fallen trees, or if you can't drive around that big boulder. For me, helped with the drive over some fallen trees part, otherwise I did not feel the need of such a high position, actually sometimes I would have liked it to be a bit lower, but not the opposite.
Handling
I would say that is somewhere in between very good and ok-ish. You can throw a lot of shit, and do some reckless stuff which a sports bike will punish you dearly for doing so. Most of the time is the kind of "forgiving" type of bike, good for beginners. For example it does not punish you for the following (*please do not try this at home):
braking in corners, front braking in corners, looking at that nice lady and adjusting your curve trajectory in the last second, locking the rear wheel (no ABS on my baby), locking the rear wheel on corner, too much weight on the rear on mountain roads, daydreaming, landscape admiring, point fixation.
So if that was the forgiving part ... what do I mean with ok-ish?
Ok-ish part: first and second gear a bit too brutal so you need a lot of clutch in some scenarios, heavy nose-dive on front brake, quick to lock the rear wheel due to the nose-dive - have fun when you got them at the same time, luggage must be as low as possible due to the already higher mass center, when heavy loaded on rear the front tends to loose surface contact especially when accelerating or on climbing roads.
All in all, I would say for a beginner will raise some certain level of difficulty when touching the ok-ish part but for the rest I would rate it as a very forgiving bike with a very relaxed driving position and driving style (after all is no monster engine or sports bike anyways).
Reliability
After 20.000 Km is hard to talk about that, although this mileage was done in a very short time and usually in very "condensed" trips. Below is a short description of the riding style until now and what was the outcome of servicing needs
How I drove it until now:
Road condition: Usually more than 1000 km of highway to the place I start to enter minor roads, then minor roads through mountains, forest roads, and dirt paths. Return to the civilization and another thousand or so of highway.
Riding time: Usually long, over 8 hours per day, with some 20 hours non stop riding sections.
Speeds: Highway usually not more than 130 Km/h (more than enough when heavy loaded), the rest ... try to stick to the legal speed limit and / or under 120 Km/h, off-road is always how fast I trust myself to ride.
Load: single + lots of luggage and tools, 2-up with small luggage.
What can I say until now:
No technical issues (you can laugh but I know guys who own BMW or KTM and at this mileage they were changing their second fuel pump or water pump, between some other minor issues).
Oil consumption - for a single cylinder is close to 0 on the 5000 Km mark, but if you respect Yamaha servicing interval of 10.000 km, after the 5000 mark you find yourself with a 100 ml oil at least. Depends on the ride style and weather conditions actually.
NO other parts exchanged yet, maybe the air filter should get a replacement but not till now, although I got a lot of dust in my mouth.
Tyre: exchanged the factory Metzeler due to its "outstanding" performance
Instruments accuracy
I hear some people complaining about the speed indicator accuracy - maybe I got the good one or maybe they do not know that there is no accurate indication on any vehicle. Actually my car performs poor at accuracy when compared with the same gps.
There are situations when the street speed sensor indicator tells you a speed, the motorcycle something else and the gps something else at all.
But ... based on my gps (can't trust that too) up to 70 Km/h there is a raising difference from 0 to 5 Km/h, up to 100 the difference grows to 7 Km/h and over 100 is somewhere around 9-10.
The only one indicator which would lie even when threatened with death penalty is the tank indicator. I really have not seen anything like this like I see when I look at it. Once I got just a line, I stopped to pee or smoke or whatever ... I start the engine and I have 3 lines. Sometimes I can get 100+ Km out of the reserve, sometimes just 20. My solution!?!? Put fuel as often as I can and carry a safe amount of 5 liters for unforeseen situations.
Consumption
Here I am a bit disappointed, but I never got under 5l/100, mostly I am on the 6+ l / 100 Km figure. Could have been better I say, but on the other hand getting on the gas by running 120 Km/h (on gps) for many hours on highway, with luggage .... is not so shabby. But not as perfect as I wished.
Other complaints
People are very good at complaining and finding faults, so no wonder you almost always hear about the bad stuff, not the good stuff.
Tank: very bad design for letting the air out after you passed the 17 L mark. I always spend an eternity at the gas station to fill that damn tank. Not much brain on the Yamaha engineers, probably was on a holiday when they designed it so they wanted to go home quickly.
Oil change: same story as the tank ... I always have to use all my trailer-trash vocabulary when I only think about it. How on earth do they thought that an oil can will fit there. I always need to carry a funnel and a fuel line to go with the funnel, just in case I need to add some oil.
Exhaust pipe being routed on the left side high enough to cook your jewels if you are in a traffic jam.
Plus points
Now the best part is coming, very hard to see the good ones when you look only for faults.
Seat: What!?!? Wait!?!? NOOOO!!! Yes I am aware that so many people complained about the seat, but I tend to think that they are pussies too. I mean, is not comfortable, after few hours you start to wonder why in the world you wanted to go with the bike, the car was a better option. BUT ... even if I complain sometimes about the seat, the fact that I could handle and not only once a 20 hour drive, followed next day by another few hours on the saddle shows that a) I like pain; or b) it is not so bad.
I mean ... any saddle will become a pain in the butt after few hours because we don't move, the knees are bent and so on .... but I never had a bike on which I gladly jumped next day after a 16 hours ride.
Handlebar rubber bushings: well, this was at the beginning an "issue" thanks to all real adventure shops made by bikers for bikers who recommended to change the original one with a CNC machined heavy duty steel or aircraft grade aluminium bushing. Why?!?!? Because they remove the soft feeling. So the stupid one (me) put its hand on the handlebar and suddenly felt a "soft feeling" which will render the bike not usable. I almost felt for the advertising trick (maybe that's why I hate so much these companies right now - because they sell lies many times). Well, I did not changed them because I was too lazy to dismantle a new bike just for some bushings. What happened was that during one of my off-road journeys I had to let the bike fall down. The problem is that I was alone and the only part I could use to pick it up was the handlebar, which sustained heavy impact (gps mount broken, hand-guards messed up, and some nasty 50 kg extra weight to come on the top of the bike weight).
After picking it up successfully - on the third attempt (so it sustained two more impacts with the fluffy road) I have seen a deviation between my handlebar and wheel position, from my previous experiences with other bikes that was the sign that I need to do one of the following (or all): try to loosen the fork clamp and readjust, maybe it slipped a bit; check if the handlebar is bent; check if the handlebar clamp screws are bent and replace.
Luckily the rubber bushings saved all of the above, I just needed a bit of force to straighten them up, and no, no tools were involved and yes I continued also off-road and the handlebar remained as it supposed to be. I am now 2800 Km past that incident and I am so happy I have the original rubber bushings.
Simplicity: everything, except filling the tank and changing the oil, is relatively simple. Even a monkey with a service manual can do stuff. I changed a lot on the bike on my own without being forced to think too much or dismantle half of the bike. I have to recognize that most of the changes were just aesthetic, beautification factor and the foolish run to gain some hundred grams worth of weight savings - at a high price - thanks to me having some extra money and less brain, Touratech & Co. advertising, and a growing community of weekend warriors on dual sport bikes - where each one is more busy gaining a few grams rather than riding. I felt into the trap! I spent money and purchased useless bling. At least I did the mechanical part on my own so I know that is not very hard to work on this bike.
Position on the bike: it is just good, although I am on the taller side of society and I always have problems with the knees being too bent, on this bike this is exactly at the pain border. I would always like to have lower pegs but then the other part of the world would not be able to ride. The fact that I can push the limits up to 20 hours of riding is a sign that the position is good, on other bikes I could not ride for such a long time.
Fun factor
Although each bike is unique, and each type of bike is different, in the dual sport category (now called Adventure) I would say that Yamaha XT660Z Tenere has a balanced performance and driving pleasure.
Is that sweet spot of do everything and excel at nothing, has no special strengths, is the "Jack of all trades, master of none" of its class.
It has enough punch to keep you going, not as big as the new Africa Twin, Super Tenere or the big KTMs and BMWs.
It does not give you warp speeds on highways like the above mentioned, but it gives the right amount of maneuverability and versatility in almost all situations.
It is thin enough to fit a single trail, light enough to pick it up on your own, very good in the urban jungle (here helps the punchy part in the first gears).
Top speeds are good enough so that you can admire the landscape or a local girl, being also forgiving if you stare for too long.
Takes "head on" almost all you can throw in front of it, and gets you home if you have to pass over that fallen tree.
Rare on the streets, so you can be almost at any time the one with that strange bike in a sea of BMWs at any bikers meeting.
Handles well 2-Up, so the significant other can enjoy the time too.
For me, the fact that it can do anything and excel at nothing is the most rewarding part for a regular guy. I do not intend to ride a rally or do some hardcore enduro, but with this bike I can do a little of everything without the disadvantages of a very specialized motorcycle. I can ride highway for hours, then go on a forest trail, then do some back-roads, return on the forest roads and back to the highway. I can travel half of Europe in one day and dip my toes into the sea, next day be on a mountain. And all of these at a very low maintenance cost, not so high initial investment and without paying premium fees for OEM parts.
Let's see how it looks at 50.000 Km
Height
Somehow seems / feels a bit lower - the feeling comes from two factors - 1. I got used with the height; 2. The saddle is now 20.000 Km old and is not so stiff, so I gained few mm through compression.
Higher weight / mass center
Is a thing which can be learned to cope with, but I still have issues with tight turns on mountain roads - issues meaning I do not trust it to drive too quick, especially on tight climbing corners where the front wheel seems to have a poor contact with the road surface. On descending corners it feels like it tends to under-steer since I do not trust it to get to inclined. So ... shortly said I tend to drive slower than with other bikes, but is also no racing machine so it does not bother so much anyways.
Higher ground clearance
Actually is useless most of the time, except the fact that you can show your knees to your fellow drivers of the city car species, maybe your boots to the face of sports car drivers, and have an equal eye-level with van drivers.
It comes handy when you get off-road? Yes and no, except when you need to pass over some fallen trees, or if you can't drive around that big boulder. For me, helped with the drive over some fallen trees part, otherwise I did not feel the need of such a high position, actually sometimes I would have liked it to be a bit lower, but not the opposite.
Handling
I would say that is somewhere in between very good and ok-ish. You can throw a lot of shit, and do some reckless stuff which a sports bike will punish you dearly for doing so. Most of the time is the kind of "forgiving" type of bike, good for beginners. For example it does not punish you for the following (*please do not try this at home):
braking in corners, front braking in corners, looking at that nice lady and adjusting your curve trajectory in the last second, locking the rear wheel (no ABS on my baby), locking the rear wheel on corner, too much weight on the rear on mountain roads, daydreaming, landscape admiring, point fixation.
So if that was the forgiving part ... what do I mean with ok-ish?
Ok-ish part: first and second gear a bit too brutal so you need a lot of clutch in some scenarios, heavy nose-dive on front brake, quick to lock the rear wheel due to the nose-dive - have fun when you got them at the same time, luggage must be as low as possible due to the already higher mass center, when heavy loaded on rear the front tends to loose surface contact especially when accelerating or on climbing roads.
All in all, I would say for a beginner will raise some certain level of difficulty when touching the ok-ish part but for the rest I would rate it as a very forgiving bike with a very relaxed driving position and driving style (after all is no monster engine or sports bike anyways).
Reliability
After 20.000 Km is hard to talk about that, although this mileage was done in a very short time and usually in very "condensed" trips. Below is a short description of the riding style until now and what was the outcome of servicing needs
How I drove it until now:
Road condition: Usually more than 1000 km of highway to the place I start to enter minor roads, then minor roads through mountains, forest roads, and dirt paths. Return to the civilization and another thousand or so of highway.
Riding time: Usually long, over 8 hours per day, with some 20 hours non stop riding sections.
Speeds: Highway usually not more than 130 Km/h (more than enough when heavy loaded), the rest ... try to stick to the legal speed limit and / or under 120 Km/h, off-road is always how fast I trust myself to ride.
Load: single + lots of luggage and tools, 2-up with small luggage.
What can I say until now:
No technical issues (you can laugh but I know guys who own BMW or KTM and at this mileage they were changing their second fuel pump or water pump, between some other minor issues).
Oil consumption - for a single cylinder is close to 0 on the 5000 Km mark, but if you respect Yamaha servicing interval of 10.000 km, after the 5000 mark you find yourself with a 100 ml oil at least. Depends on the ride style and weather conditions actually.
NO other parts exchanged yet, maybe the air filter should get a replacement but not till now, although I got a lot of dust in my mouth.
Tyre: exchanged the factory Metzeler due to its "outstanding" performance
Instruments accuracy
I hear some people complaining about the speed indicator accuracy - maybe I got the good one or maybe they do not know that there is no accurate indication on any vehicle. Actually my car performs poor at accuracy when compared with the same gps.
There are situations when the street speed sensor indicator tells you a speed, the motorcycle something else and the gps something else at all.
But ... based on my gps (can't trust that too) up to 70 Km/h there is a raising difference from 0 to 5 Km/h, up to 100 the difference grows to 7 Km/h and over 100 is somewhere around 9-10.
The only one indicator which would lie even when threatened with death penalty is the tank indicator. I really have not seen anything like this like I see when I look at it. Once I got just a line, I stopped to pee or smoke or whatever ... I start the engine and I have 3 lines. Sometimes I can get 100+ Km out of the reserve, sometimes just 20. My solution!?!? Put fuel as often as I can and carry a safe amount of 5 liters for unforeseen situations.
Consumption
Here I am a bit disappointed, but I never got under 5l/100, mostly I am on the 6+ l / 100 Km figure. Could have been better I say, but on the other hand getting on the gas by running 120 Km/h (on gps) for many hours on highway, with luggage .... is not so shabby. But not as perfect as I wished.
Other complaints
People are very good at complaining and finding faults, so no wonder you almost always hear about the bad stuff, not the good stuff.
Tank: very bad design for letting the air out after you passed the 17 L mark. I always spend an eternity at the gas station to fill that damn tank. Not much brain on the Yamaha engineers, probably was on a holiday when they designed it so they wanted to go home quickly.
Oil change: same story as the tank ... I always have to use all my trailer-trash vocabulary when I only think about it. How on earth do they thought that an oil can will fit there. I always need to carry a funnel and a fuel line to go with the funnel, just in case I need to add some oil.
Exhaust pipe being routed on the left side high enough to cook your jewels if you are in a traffic jam.
Plus points
Now the best part is coming, very hard to see the good ones when you look only for faults.
Seat: What!?!? Wait!?!? NOOOO!!! Yes I am aware that so many people complained about the seat, but I tend to think that they are pussies too. I mean, is not comfortable, after few hours you start to wonder why in the world you wanted to go with the bike, the car was a better option. BUT ... even if I complain sometimes about the seat, the fact that I could handle and not only once a 20 hour drive, followed next day by another few hours on the saddle shows that a) I like pain; or b) it is not so bad.
I mean ... any saddle will become a pain in the butt after few hours because we don't move, the knees are bent and so on .... but I never had a bike on which I gladly jumped next day after a 16 hours ride.
Handlebar rubber bushings: well, this was at the beginning an "issue" thanks to all real adventure shops made by bikers for bikers who recommended to change the original one with a CNC machined heavy duty steel or aircraft grade aluminium bushing. Why?!?!? Because they remove the soft feeling. So the stupid one (me) put its hand on the handlebar and suddenly felt a "soft feeling" which will render the bike not usable. I almost felt for the advertising trick (maybe that's why I hate so much these companies right now - because they sell lies many times). Well, I did not changed them because I was too lazy to dismantle a new bike just for some bushings. What happened was that during one of my off-road journeys I had to let the bike fall down. The problem is that I was alone and the only part I could use to pick it up was the handlebar, which sustained heavy impact (gps mount broken, hand-guards messed up, and some nasty 50 kg extra weight to come on the top of the bike weight).
After picking it up successfully - on the third attempt (so it sustained two more impacts with the fluffy road) I have seen a deviation between my handlebar and wheel position, from my previous experiences with other bikes that was the sign that I need to do one of the following (or all): try to loosen the fork clamp and readjust, maybe it slipped a bit; check if the handlebar is bent; check if the handlebar clamp screws are bent and replace.
Luckily the rubber bushings saved all of the above, I just needed a bit of force to straighten them up, and no, no tools were involved and yes I continued also off-road and the handlebar remained as it supposed to be. I am now 2800 Km past that incident and I am so happy I have the original rubber bushings.
Simplicity: everything, except filling the tank and changing the oil, is relatively simple. Even a monkey with a service manual can do stuff. I changed a lot on the bike on my own without being forced to think too much or dismantle half of the bike. I have to recognize that most of the changes were just aesthetic, beautification factor and the foolish run to gain some hundred grams worth of weight savings - at a high price - thanks to me having some extra money and less brain, Touratech & Co. advertising, and a growing community of weekend warriors on dual sport bikes - where each one is more busy gaining a few grams rather than riding. I felt into the trap! I spent money and purchased useless bling. At least I did the mechanical part on my own so I know that is not very hard to work on this bike.
Position on the bike: it is just good, although I am on the taller side of society and I always have problems with the knees being too bent, on this bike this is exactly at the pain border. I would always like to have lower pegs but then the other part of the world would not be able to ride. The fact that I can push the limits up to 20 hours of riding is a sign that the position is good, on other bikes I could not ride for such a long time.
Fun factor
Although each bike is unique, and each type of bike is different, in the dual sport category (now called Adventure) I would say that Yamaha XT660Z Tenere has a balanced performance and driving pleasure.
Is that sweet spot of do everything and excel at nothing, has no special strengths, is the "Jack of all trades, master of none" of its class.
It has enough punch to keep you going, not as big as the new Africa Twin, Super Tenere or the big KTMs and BMWs.
It does not give you warp speeds on highways like the above mentioned, but it gives the right amount of maneuverability and versatility in almost all situations.
It is thin enough to fit a single trail, light enough to pick it up on your own, very good in the urban jungle (here helps the punchy part in the first gears).
Top speeds are good enough so that you can admire the landscape or a local girl, being also forgiving if you stare for too long.
Takes "head on" almost all you can throw in front of it, and gets you home if you have to pass over that fallen tree.
Rare on the streets, so you can be almost at any time the one with that strange bike in a sea of BMWs at any bikers meeting.
Handles well 2-Up, so the significant other can enjoy the time too.
For me, the fact that it can do anything and excel at nothing is the most rewarding part for a regular guy. I do not intend to ride a rally or do some hardcore enduro, but with this bike I can do a little of everything without the disadvantages of a very specialized motorcycle. I can ride highway for hours, then go on a forest trail, then do some back-roads, return on the forest roads and back to the highway. I can travel half of Europe in one day and dip my toes into the sea, next day be on a mountain. And all of these at a very low maintenance cost, not so high initial investment and without paying premium fees for OEM parts.
Let's see how it looks at 50.000 Km
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