Tenere 700 (DM07B)

What sets this chassis apart from the rest of the field is how much adjustment you actually get. Both ends are fully adjustable and rated above the class, so if you're the kind of rider who dials in a setup rather than living with whatever rolled off the line, there's genuine range to work with. Stock, it already drops into a tight corner with an easy, settled confidence and no nervous edge. Spend an afternoon on the clickers and it pays back the effort.

This is the quality that keeps the rest of the bike's compromises in perspective. The build feels properly screwed together, and the Tenere carries the kind of reputation riders stake a remote trip on, not because a brochure told them to but because the machine keeps showing up. Nothing in my time on it gave me a reason to second-guess that. When you're a long way from help, that steadiness counts for more than any single number on a spec sheet.

On a short loop the Tenere never gave me trouble, but stretch the day out and the stock saddle starts asking questions you can't ignore. Speed makes the exposure worse. The little screen pushes almost nothing aside, so at highway pace the air piles into my shoulders and arms, and even my legs and feet sit out in the open with nothing to tuck behind. The cockpit doesn't lift the mood. That handlebar dial wore on me, the switch quality feels cut-rate next to the rest of the group, and the menu logic fights you even when the buttons cooperate, so prying anything useful out of the thin electronics takes more patience than it should. After sunset you're left feeling for the right button in the dark, since none of them light up. Comfort is plainly the last thing this bike spends its budget on.

Every test session had one stretch I kept chasing, and it was always the loose stuff. On gravel the Tenere turns into a different animal. Where the other bikes in the group felt like they were putting up with the surface, this one acted like it had finally been handed the job it was built for. There's a real, physical sense of being on exactly the right machine in exactly the right place, and it lands the moment the asphalt gives way under you.

This is the weak link, no way around it. Grab the front lever and the first part of the travel feels soft and uncommunicative, so you're never quite sure how much bite you've actually asked for. Outright stopping power sits at middling on top of that. Everywhere else the Tenere holds up its end of the bargain; here it plainly doesn't, and the shortfall is wide enough that I noticed it every time I reached for the brake.

The spec sheet undersells what's happening down low. There's honest pull off the bottom and a meaty middle that lets you hold a gear and keep flowing where a lazier motor would have you stabbing at the lever. My one real gripe sits at the very first crack of throttle, where a patch of slack and an abrupt handoff make slow, technical going clumsier than it ought to be. In tight off-road work, that's the wrong trait to live with.

The Tenere keeps its electronics deliberately thin, and that's a fair trade right up until the weather turns. There's no traction control and no slipper clutch on board. Ride dry dirt and I honestly didn't miss either of them. But run it through a wet, mixed-terrain day alongside machines that carry both, and the absent kit stops reading as a footnote. The gap is real, and it surfaces exactly when conditions get greasy and you'd most want the safety net.