Yamaha 1200 Super Tenere

On Thursday I finished work early and went through to Vredenburg to take the demo Yamaha 1200 Super Tenere out for a ride and I must confess to being very excited about riding this great looking beast.

Craig and Monica Welch are the owners of West Coast Yamaha (022 7191398), they have a good stock of new and used bikes as well as clothing and accessories and a fully equipped work shop, nice friendly people and keen bikers themselves they are always involved with the local biking community.

Craig was busy in the workshop so I took a picture of his pretty wife before going for my ride.
This bike is a beast! My first impression was that it was quite bulky but as soon as I sat on it I could feel that the centre of balance was very low and in fact it is quite slim when you get your knees up against the tank.After Craig showed me through the controls and switches I started the engine and immediately fell in love with the deep rorty exhaust note, lovely stuff! I rode cautiously out of the town to get used to the handling because this bike just drops into corners with incredible agility.
Once out of the town I opened it up a bit, I was still in "Touring mode" and saw 200kmh quite easily before tapping off. I noticed that the footpegs are quite far back so that my feet were more under my butt than under my knees, this gave a nice upright position close to the tank and the wide and high handlebars made the bike feel eminently controlable.
After taking a couple of photos I got back onto the road, the dash is easily readable with a very large digital speedo reading (no excuse for getting speeding fines with this one!) and a rev counter. The indicator lights are nice and big as well so it's not so easy to make mistakes there.

There are a lot of small digital readouts on the dash which could be a bit distracting; such as the riding mode indicator, the traction control setting and the fuel consumption but I think that if this was your own bike you would soon get used to them.

There is no gear position indicator which is a pity. I next tried out the other riding mode; "Sport" which is controlled by pushing a small toggle switch with your thumb on the right handlebar, you close the throttle, toggle the switch and open up. What a rush! There is a distinct difference in the bike's performance and I was over 200kmh in very quick time. I didn't go any faster because the wind was gusting pretty hard and the only drawback with this bike is the pretty sparse wind protection from the small screen.There are two traction control settings for different road conditions as well as the "Off" position for dirt road riding, this gives you the ability to do power slides and rooster tails with ease because this bike has plenty of grunt. To change the traction control settings or to switch it off you are required to stop and select neutral.

The gear change is a nice smooth click, shifting easily up and down with no "clunk" sound or jerking. This is a nice looking bike, it has an aggressive "face" and although I didn't ride very far I thoroughly enjoyed it, this bike can definitely bring out the hooligan in you!

All in all a very nice motorcycle, build quality is top class and there are pannier boxes and a topcase available aftermarket, the bike brought out the adventurer in me and made me want to head off through Africa - I certainly wouldn't mind one in my garage.

Give Craig or Monica a call and let them set you up.