Month: June 2020

I’m currently in Redding Ca. getting the Tenere 700 seat rebuilt by one of the best guys on the west coast. Seth Laam has worked magic on my 1200 Super Tenere twice,   improving it after my ironbutt in 2013 and then again in 2016 before my 48 state/ 4 corners ride. Seth has been building seats for 21 years now, that’s a long time when you are still a couple years from being 40😏. He worked under Bill Mayer since a teenager before moving out on his own to make a name for himself.  His attention to detail and personal service is clearly evident when you talk with him. (Hint, give him a call!)

He is quite popular among several different brands of bikes, he’s seeing lots of can-am spiders at the moment. I know he’s done a ton of Super Teneres and he has said he’s done thousands of FJR’s. Seth is a 1 man show, from initial contact, interview, seat building and shipping department, it’s only him. Wait times can be a about a month (with shipping time included) if you are mailing in your seat pan BUT riding out to Redding will cut that time down to 2-4 hours. The riding around Redding is also very spectacular, on or off road. This is his first Tenere 700 seat but I’m sure it won’t be his last.😏 Call him to set up a ride in, you won’t be disappointed!

 Within a few hours he was done and I’m very impressed with the craftsmanship! His prices start about $400 depending on what want done, that’s a deal in my book!

Even the 8 month old shop puppy Apollo likes the T-700! 😁

Darryl VanNieuwenhuise and his team from Cyclops Adventure Sports have been patiently waiting to get ahold of my bike for weeks now.  You see, they only had a little bit of time working on a T-700 with Cory Hanson from Camel ADV several months ago in the parking lot of a casino in Vegas.  Cory wanted a set of Aurora LED Auxiliary lights installed on his high fender kit  as he torture tested his T-700 in the desert Southwest but that wasn’t nearly enough time for Darryl. This is the result of being fabricated on the fly. Good job!

Darryl had my bike for a week and was able to come up with a prototype mount even before the Acerbis high fenders had arrived. Only a minor adjustment of 1/2 inch inward and upward of the final production bracket for Aurora lights moving them closer to the fender will be made. I think I’ll keep this original  bracket though.

The lights also look great with the stock low fender!
And now, some information about the Aurora Auxiliary lights. They are a fully programmable, adjustable and switchable 4000 lumen LED Auxiliary light set  that only draw a low 19 watts. It’s a complete “plug and play” set up for the Tenere 700.  There are amber daytime running lights, a low beam white setting that is at 50% and high beam white that is at 100%. You’ll need to get with the team at Cyclops to program other settings if you want. 

Here are some night time shots, the light the bike with the Auroras put out is extremely impressive!

The sequence of pictures is: bike lights low beam only, Auroras and bike lights on low beam, Auroras and bike lights on high beam at 3 different distances lighting up 30+ ft tall cypress trees

These lights are mainly for off-road use in the woods, I’ll only use the amber daytime running lights the majority of the time. It’s nice to know I have the capability to throw A LOT  of light in case I need it.

Another set of goodies that Darryl and his team installed is a set of Multi function turn signals.   These act as white daytime marker lights then strobe in amber and move in the direction of the turn when the turn signal is activated. The rear brake lights get a boost also from them  when those are activated in red. I really like the hazard lights that now come standard on the T-700, it’s great peace of mind to have that function. Check out this cool video on how they work!

  There is also a tail tidy still on back order from England through my buddy Erik at Twisted Throttle . Once in, it will clean up the atrocious rear stock fender area and make things look a lot more “tidy”.

The bike will go back to Darryl when it comes in for its install and a check up of the entire system.

I’ve been working with the team at Cyclops for about 6 years now since they had first moved out of their home garage and into a real shop.
Here is a blog I did back in 2014 on the LED conversion kit for the Super Tenere Review of the H-7 LED replacement bulbs

They have put lights on a good number of the Super Teneres in the PNW and I’m very happy now that there will be an plug and play option for the Tenere 700. These things will sell like hot cakes! You also can’t beat the very high level of customer service from an experienced rider in the moto industry! Give Darryl or his lovely wife Sandra a call!

It’s finally here! Ever since this spy photo leaked back in 2016, I knew it was my next bike. ADV Pulse article from 2016

Just a mere 4 years later a Yamaha Tenere 700 shows up with my name on the box😏

Without Jeff and his assistant Cassie, at Sportland Yamaha in Cle Elum Wa.  I wouldn’t have a bike, I owe them pretty much everything! A bit of back story on how they were able to secure my bike…

On May 18th Corporate Yamaha decided to change the procedure on how the initial pre-orders would be released. The first few hundred bikes were to go the consumers that could log onto the public website and request a bike at 1200 noon Eastern time Friday May 22nd.  Jeff and Cassie showed up to work more than an hour early (9:00 am pacific is 12:00 eastern) with their typing fingers ready.  The consumer( me) had to go onto a website and request a bike then a reservation number was generated and emailed back to the consumer.

That number was then relayed back to Jeff and Cassie where they logged onto an internal Yamaha website to place an order using the code I  gave them. Sound confused? Yes,we all were! In a matter of 30 minuets  both the public and internal websites had crashed but Jeff and Cassie had secured 7 bikes by then 🙌 AWESOME JOB! Within 3 hours, all pre ordered bikes were spoken for. They went that fast!

Fast forward to the first week of June when I get a text from Jeff with pictures.  😁

This Tenere 700 is the bike I’ve wanted since before the 1200 Super Tenere came along, it would have been my choice after realizing the Kawasaki KLR (even with the 685 big bore kit) I had didn’t have enough power (only about 35-38 horsepower).  This Tenere 700 has about 65 to 74 horsepower depending on how it’s tuned by Nels of 2 Wheeled Dyno works. Read all about the amazing little motor here The CP2 engine   A considerable difference indeed for two bikes with essentially the same weight.

As I pulled into Sportland Yamaha to pick up my bike, the radio was playing this….. 😁 TENERE TAQQIM TOSSAM couldn’t ask for anything better!

Jeff’s  crew were busy putting my bike together from the crate and with aftermarket parts from Cory of Camel ADV products Rerouting the brake lines for the high front fender took a bit longer then planned but it all came together eventually.
Once the bike was ready and the check was written, his crew gave me a rundown on how it went together and I was off on a quick 25 mile ride around the area.

My initial response is it’s an AWESOME bike! I’ll do my best to keep the RPM’s down for the first few hundred miles 😏  It’s about the same weight as that KLR but sooo much more smooth power. It will need a better seat which will be from Seth at Laam seats in Redding Ca in a couple weeks. The handlebars will also need to be adjusted a bit too, I hope there is room in the brake lines for adjustable links. These are basic ergonomic things to fit the bike to me, every rider should make these changes. All in all, it’s a really great bike with the power to weight and will be much better to travel with in or on my van. Allowing me to get deeper into the woods to find those scenic vistas.

😁😁😁😁😁