Yamaha Tenere 700 World Raid Tour Hits Australia

Dennis Chung
by Dennis Chung

While we eagerly await the final production version of the Ténéré 700, Yamaha is taking its prototype on an international “World Raid” tour with professional racers and brand ambassadors putting the 689cc adventure bike to the test.

Yamaha Ténéré 700 Is Still Just a Prototype

The first stage actually took place in March, with Yamaha Dakar racer Rodney Faggotter testing the Ténéré 700 on different terrain in his native Australia. Faggotter also surprised members of the Ténéré Tragics group during a rally event that featured various models including the original 1983 XT600Z Ténéré to the current XTZ1200 Super Ténéré.

Yamaha released a video showing highlights of Faggotter’s turn on the Ténéré, offering his impressions of the prototype from the perspective of a seasoned Dakar racer.

The World Raid tour continues with 13-time Dakar winner Stephane Peterhansel in the Moroccan desert, Yamaha factory racer Adrien van Beveren in Argentina. Explorer Nick Sanders, multiple French Enduro Champion David Frétigné, Touratech founder Herbert Schwarz, Spanish Enduro Champion Cristóbal Guerrero and Italian ISDE racer Alessandro Botturi will then take their turns riding the prototype across Europe.

At the same time, Yamaha will be performing its own regular testing of various near-production versions, with one such bike recently spotted on the streets of Milan, Italy. Of course, photos of a camo’ed up test bike stuck in traffic aren’t as cool as watching a professional Dakar racer pop a wheelie on the beach.

All this build-up, of course, will culminate with the official unveiling of the final production model this fall, likely at EICMA in November.

Dennis Chung
Dennis Chung

Dennis has been a part of the Motorcycle.com team since 2008, and through his tenure, has developed a firm grasp of industry trends, and a solid sense of what's to come. A bloodhound when it comes to tracking information on new motorcycles, if there's a new model on the horizon, you'll probably hear about it from him first.

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  • That guy That guy on May 07, 2018

    They have been teasing this bike for so long I'm beginning to lose interest. Full reveal in the fall?

  • Patriot159 Patriot159 on May 07, 2018

    The dealer 10 miles from my house has both KTM and Yamaha so we'll see next year which one... I'd venture to guess the Yammie will come in at 2 grand less which for me is a big factor. Either will be awesome though!

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