Yamaha’s new Super Tenere was bound to be compared to BMW’s R1200GS. The first thing to strike me was how flat the Super Tenere’s engine felt. The Super T is an adventure bike, designed to cope will all kinds of terrain and surfaces. Yamaha has added a linked braking system as well. It’s a totally unobtrusive system that works brilliantly, reducing front end dive and stabilizing the bike under braking. So in all, the Super Tenere is an adequate all-rounder. It’s fun, comfortable and easy to ride.
These first pictures have emerged for the new-for-2011 Yamaha XTZ250 Tenere, a new mini-adventure bike going on sale in Brazil, and the Fazer 250
The rest of the bike is equally basic, with a tubular steel chassis, budget suspension and low-spec twin piston brakes.
The Fazer 250 is based on the same single-cylinder engine, and has equally simple running gear, but with shorter travel suspension and smaller cast-alloy road wheels instead of the Tenere’s long-travel parts and trail tyre-equipped rims.
But in familiar Yamaha fashion, the Tenere costs more than you might hope: Brazilian dealers are asking £4785.
If you live in Brazil and have a spare $7000, you can get yourself one of these very appealing mini adventure bikes, the Yamaha XTZ250 Tenere.
Though it's unlikely the bike will find its way beyond South America in the short term future, the idea of an affordable, entry-level learner-legal adventure bike has whet the appetite of a couple of staffers at the Bikesales Network.
With a contemporary design that mimics the bigger Tenere models, such as the Yamaha XT1200Z Super Tenere, the XTZ250 is powered by a fairly simple air-cooled 250cc single-cylinder engine that cranks out 21hp (15kW).