TRIAL BY TÉNÉRÉ

If you're into adventure bikes, Yamaha's Ténéré should need zero introduction. But the brilliance of 2025's new models most definitely need shouting about...

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Covered in dirt, breathing like an asthmatic shoplifter, and slowly roasting under a scorching sun, I needed no convincing that I was in my element. As sadistic as it might sound, miles from anyone or anything, staring at the endless mass of desert before me, my sense of adventure was bouncing off the limiter, and that was all thanks to Yamaha's newly-launched Ténéré 700. In true keeping with the original spirit of this best-selling middleweight masterpiece, Yamaha didn't beat around the bush when it came to ascertaining the kind of terrain and trails to launch its latest iteration adventure bike; it had to be hard, it had to be hairy, it had to be here... in the Agafay Desert.

There aren't many invites that come to us with a request for blood types, or the caveat of needing to be an experienced off-road rider to attend, but this was one of those times and I'd been looking forward to the trip for many weeks. Of course, the thing I was most looking forward to was experiencing just how far Yamaha had pushed the envelope with the new Ténéré.

Building on the firm foundations of the versions that'd come before, with more than 70,000 units sold in Europe alone since the model arrived on the scene in 2019, this next generation had to hit the mark. And to ensure it did, a surprising amount of the bike has been changed. Admittedly, from 20 metres away you'd be forgiven for thinking that's not the case, but from that distance you probably wouldn't be able to notice that the seat's lower at the front, the tank's been moved forward, or that the KYB forks are wholly different and now fully adjustable.