here to get a balance of comfort
and speed. Right now, I'd say this
setup is tuned on the aggressive
side, ready to be ridden hard, and
suffering on the smaller bumps
and harsher hits—the complete
and total opposite of a standard
T7 in my opinion. Suspension
tuners should be licking their
chops here. Comfort searchers
will be concerned.
C H A S S I S
P E R F O R M A N C E
The next most impressive thing
to me is the chassis balance.
I've always felt the Tenere 700
is a stable machine with predict-
able power that pushes the bike
through
terrain effortlessly. That
rollers. It has substantial bot-
toming resistance and remains
lively and alert,
which makes this
bike exciting to me. It has the
potential to be ridden hard off-
road, rather than simply getting
through the off-road sections.
All of this comes at a bit of a
steep cost in comfort. I was tun
-
ing on clickers every day, search-
ing for more plushness over
embedded
rocks and rough con-
crete. Again, this is the opposite
of
what I normally do on T7 ma-
chines. Softening compression
and speeding up
the rebound, as
well as adding spring preload,
started to make a difference in
our first rides together, but there
is plenty of room to experiment
Coming from years of Tenere
testing, I was expecting more
hold-up and bottoming resis
-
tance, for sure, but I wasn't any-
where near bottoming out this
suspension
over three days of
riding in Idaho. And that's weird
for me on an adventure bike. I
can usually touch the limit with a
little effort, but I didn't push this
bike that far yet, I guess? And I
had some good opportunities; it
just didn't go there.
Had I been on a standard T7
and done what I did on this bike,
I'd have a flat front tire and sore
wrists. The World Raid significant
-
ly resists bottoming or wallowing
deep
in the stroke across sharp
impacts or deep, stroke-stressing
RIDE REVIEW I 2026 YAMAHA TENERE 700 WORLD RAID
The Tenere 700 has
felt like it has a high
center of gravity since
its introduction in 2021
in the U.S. market. The
World Raid edition seems
to solve that by carrying
more fuel lower in the
chassis for better
balance and feel.
P108
