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
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