I often find people asking if the T7 is a good bike for new riders, specially for tall new riders.

I think It’s a fantastic bike for this use case, so I decided to write this post, so I can copy and paste it every time I stumble on those kind of requests.

• It’s a Yamaha, so it’s a reliable bike by default, and its CP2 engine is probably the most reliable engine available on the market.
• It has the perfect amount of power for any kind of usage, on the road you can overtake everything you want with no problems and on offroad it has the right amount of power to give you traction without any electronic control
• It’s a very forgiving bike for a new rider, its transmission let you start the bike in 2nd gear or even 3rd gear without stalling or burning the clutch.
• Older models with no electronic aids or controls are the perfect teachers for new riders, they are very forgiving about mistakes because they are not too powerful and they have a very smooth and linear engine progression, but they let you feel the bike, feel how she behaves, feel the transmission and feel if you’re about to make a mistake. Traction controls or other electronic aids will hide these things, they are invasive and they won’t let you understand if you’re about to make a mistake, so you’ll never learn with them.
• It’s a big 200 Kg bike, but still it’s one of the lightest bikes among adventure bikes.
• It’s a tall bike, and if you’re a tall guy you won’t find many other bikes that fits you like a glove like the T7.

With that said let me add a few advices from a newbie rider to other newbie riders:

• Ride solo, it’s better, it’s safer and it’s the best way to learn.
  If you ride with a group you’ll end up forcing your pace to the group pace, and that’s very dangerous, don’t be stupid.
• Forget about social media and motorcycle influencers, don’t buy a bike or ride because you saw some cool guy on social media, it’s stupid.
  Buy a bike and ride because you wanna do it, because riding makes you feel better, because you find it fun, not because you think it’s cool or because you wanna do the same things you saw on social media.
• Travelling by bike it’s exhausting, it’s not like travelling by car. When you are exhausted you make mistakes, sometimes fatal mistakes.
  Don’t underestimate fatigue, stop frequently, take your time and when you are about to think “one more hour of riding and then I’ll stop” It’s already time to stop and rest.
• Don’t buy any optional part before you’ll ride your first 10.000 Km, but specially don’t buy motorcycle parts because you saw some influencer on social media talking about that thing.
  It will take time to understand your bike, to learn what’s ok, what’s not ok, and what you really need; don’t waste money on parts, spend them on fuel while travelling.
• Your bike is already perfect to ride all around the world as it is when you get her from the dealer, don’t trust people that say you have to change springs, dampeners, mufflers or whatever other part.

That’s it.