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.

I would like to address a small message to motorcycle riders on social media, because every time I see some picture or video of riders doing stupid things it makes me mad.

I’m a motorcycle rider, I have a Tenere 700  since april 2021 and I rode mine for 60k Km, but every time I see some picture or video on social media about wheelies and stunts and people riding at insane speeds I think it’s stupid and these pictures and videos should be banned and prohibited, because they push other people to imitate these things, and that’s how people get injuried, killed and most important get other people get injuried and killed, people peacefully walking on the streets or going back home from work, or going to school etc etc…

And guys, don’t start with the usual “but I do wheelies only in an empty parking spot” because it’s false and it’s stupid.

Why do you ever exercise on wheelies?

The answer is simple: to do wheelies on the road, it’s not something you need to ride, it’s something dangerous and forbidden by the law, so don’t treat us like fools, we perfectly know that each guy practicing wheelies on a parking spot is preparing for some stupid video or photo on social media, and in the meantime people die or get injuried because of your stupidity.

Don’t be naive, each and everyone of us is free, but our freedom ends where start the freedom of someone else.

Each and everyone of us has the responsibility of what he or she publish online, and publishing wheelies or stunts or speeding photos and videos means you push other people to do the same, to push their skills and their bikes to the limits, and people die.

Instead publish videos and photos of good examples or riding, riding with proper safety gear, ride in the proper way, show good trick and examples or riding in a responsible way.

I just finished my first long ride on my bike (~ 2000 Km in 4 days) after 3 years of riding and more than 42k Km on the bike.

This was my fist group ride, until now I done all the 42k Km on my bike as solo rider.

It was a blast, I really enjoyed it but I also made mistakes and learned a lot, here’s some suggestions I can give as a newbye:

Don’t underestimate the “emulation effect” of the group.

Riding with people with more experience or more powerful bikes than you means that you’ll always try to keep the pace and ride like them: DON’T DO IT.
Keep your pace, ride at your speed, nowadays everyone has a phone which can work as a GPS navigator, maybe you’ll arrive later, that’s fine, but don’t underestimate the danger of riding at other people speed or pace.

Riding comfort matters.

Riding is hard for your body, don’t feel ashamed to stop to make you butt rest or to drink some water.

Long rides are like marathons, completing them is already like winning them.

Consider riding underpants (like these https://www.revitsport.com/us_en/motorcycle-pants-airborne-2-black ) and a comfort seat, usually riding gear is not comfortable and will scratch you skin after hours of riding, those underpants prevent this and will help with sweat.

A mistake I did was using underwear like this and the last days they caused me a huge pain on the edges because of rubber bands, small details like that can make a huge difference between a comfortable and fun ride and a constant pain in the ass (literally).

Take it easy, take your time

Don’t let the trip consist only in riding riding and again riding, otherwise you’ll end up exhausted.

If you found a stunning panoramic view stop and enjoy it, this will help your mind and your body.

If you want to take a photo stop and do it, remember: it’s not a race, it’s an holiday.

Start early, end early.

Usually I hate to get up early in the morning, but in a riding trip it’s the best solution.

Riding when you’re exhausted is too dangerous, you’ll risk mistakes that can be fatal; also consider that, as I said, riding is hard for your body, you’ll see very soon that even if you to sleep early (early than your usual habits) you’ll fall asleep in no time.

Get a good H2O protection gear.

Riding wet is an awful experience, that may seem obvious but it still true.

Get an helmet with pinlock

Ride early in a chilly morning or under the rain may cause your visor to get foggy.

Buy a helmet with a pinlock ready visor, and mount the pinlock, it’s the cheapest and most effective way to prevent this problem, it will make a huge difference, believe me.

Stop when you don’t enjoy riding anymore.

After hours and hours of riding is perfectly normal to not feel the ride enjoyable, that’s the moment you have to stop, take a break or find a place to rest, don’t force you to reach your goal for the day.

Few days ago I received a new gift for my beloved Noraly: a brand new 30 liters Lone Rider Overlander bag.

I don’t want to spend all day talking about specs and make a full review, there’s plenty of videos and rewiews online.
I just want to give a quick personal feedback on the bag because I just used it for my longest trip (around 1500 Km from north to the center of Italy on backroads).

First of all the bag is sturdy, it’s really tough and worked perfectly.
It’s “only” 30 liters, there’s a bigger one but I choose this one because it has the perfect size for small/medium trips, can easily carry a full size rain cover and also my helmet, so I can use it for daily trips using it as a backpack without bothering about my helmet.

Despite the size it can contain much more stuff than I imagined, the way the bag closes also helps a lot in case you need to carry more than the official 30 liters.

The bag is secured to the bike frame with a full set of straps that can easily adapt to any situation, and there are also extra straps to attach another bag to it, just in case you need extra space.
At first I was unsure if the straps could resist with an heavy load, so I decided to use additional plastic straps to secure it as a precaution, but at the end I realized it was not necessary.

The quick attachment/release system is really really good, it’s easy to use, it’s quick and using four different clips it keeps the bag in its place.
Every strap also have a piece of velcro at the end to wrap the extra strap and fix it in place, a very simple and clever solution to avoid your straps to fly around like flags while riding.

During this trip I catched some rain, and the stuff inside remained completely dry all the time with no problems, just remember to close the air valve if you’re planning to ride in the rain.
This air valve is another really clever solution, if closed properly the bag is completely sealed from the outside, so with this valve you can squeeze the outlander to push outh most of the air, in this way if you close the valve the bag keeps some sort of negative pressure inside to keep it smaller, even if you overload it.

The bag also has a nice aluminium insert that you can use to secure it to the bike frame, I purchased a Steelcore strap as suggested by Lone Rider; this provide a nice way to secure the bag to the bike frame and lock it in place if you need to stop in crowded places (for example if you need a brake for lunch or go to the bathroom).
In this way no only the bag is impossible to open without cut it (and believe me, the outer shell is really tough, you need a really big and sharp knife, with a pair of scissors it’s almost impossible to cut) but the Steelcore wrap provides an additional way to secure the bag to the bike frame.

The only bag element that is not secured is the top cover, but it also has a quick attachment system with four plastic clips, so you can easily detach it if you need to take a brake and leave the bike alone; this top cover is not too big but it’s very useful for documents or small stuff, in some sense it feels like a small tank bag, just attached to the main bag and out of the way (which is nice because I don’t like tank bags too much).
On one side of this top cover you have this nice transparent bag for documents, on the other side you have a lot of molle webbings to attach additional bags or stuff to the bag, for example I used them to attach a canteen for water using a couple for velcro straps and an aluminium snap hook.
The transparent document bag is attached with velcro, so you can easily take it out, and underneath you’ll find another big pouch closed with a zip; Lone Rider suggest to use this puch for a camel bag, but I decided to put inside this small stuff like sunglasses, usb chargers and cables, and emergency cellphone, the only problem is that this puch is not waterproof, so be careful and use a plastic bag to keep your items dry.

I’m a big guy, and at first I was worried that the bag could be too big and too close to my back, because while riding I often change position to get some comfort and prevent butt sore.
With the Outlander this problem simply does not exist, the bag is out of the way and stays only in the back pannier rack, there’s no way you can feel it with your back or can cause any issue if you ride with a passenger.

Another thing I was worring about was the bike balance while riding; my outlander was packed with enough stuff for an entire week, it was heavy (I forgot to weight it, but I think it was around 15 Kg, maybe more), and while I was riding I felt absolutely nothing, basically I rode my bike as I was not carring a thing on it.

Honestly I’m very happy with it and maybe in the future I will also get the 48 liters version for longer trips or holidays; I’m planning to buy Mosko Moto side bags, and I think this Outlander is the perfect companion for them.
In the end I think the bag is really good, it’s not cheap but its quality justify the price, the only things I can suggest to Lone Rider are:

• provide an extra set of straps to secure the bag to the bike, they’re ok and sturdy but anyone can steal them from the bike during the night or while the bike is parked.
• the air valve is a really nice solution, but I’m worried that it can broke (it’s make by plastic and is glued to the bag), in this case the bag would not be waterproof anymore.
• put a single “backpack style” strap on the top cover, so in case of a break you can easily carry it (if you go to the bathroom you hook it somewhere without worring to put it on a filthy floor)
• make an arrangement with Steelcore to sell a bag+strap combo, because their shipment costs are insane (I payed 50 € for the strap + 25 € for the shipment, which is insane considering the package was already in the EU).

New gifts for my beloved Noraly, finally I’m able to test Outback Motortek crash bars combo and the new euro 5 skid plate.

I bought these new components a few moths ago but I was able to get them installed only now on my 2nd service by Yahama.
At first I would like to install them by myself following the excellent instructions from Outback Motortek (covering all the key aspects, torque on every screw, what kind of threadlocker use etc etc..), but some of the screws need to be threaded on the bike frame, and I don’t have the right equipment to do it properly, instead of damaging the bike I preferrend to pay someone more competent than me to do the job, remember one of the key principles on a motorcycle: be humble :)

Why did I choose these products instead official Yahama ones?
Well it’s pretty simple, all started with the crashbars, I knew I need them, the bike could fall in any moment and it’s better to scratch some steel bars than the bike plastics (or worst like engine, frame etc etc…).
Yamaha crashbars are well built, are strong, in some sort they are minimalistic… but I found them horrible to look at, everytime I look to them my mind goes to Ferengi ears from Star Trek.

So I started to look around for some other products, I checked many of them from Givi, Touratech, Sw Motech, Heed, Adventure Spec and Outback Motorek, and I found the last better.
First of all they are really really sturdy, they’re made by two parts (lower and upper) linked together, they have more mounting points then all the others (which help to distribute the load on several points in case of a crash), and they are also available in several colors, obviously I choose red which look amazing to me.

The only problem with Outback Motortek crash bars is that they barely fit with the euro 5 T7 because of the catalytic converter plate.
I had three options:

1. remove the catalytic converter plate (no way, the damn thing is expensive and I don’t want to damage it because of a stupid flying stone)
2. bent or cut the catalytic converter plate (it’s a cheap piece of aluminium but I don’t like this solution)
3. buy the new Outback Motortek euro 5 skid plate they launched few weeks before

I choose the 3rd one, and I don’t regret it because it looks amazing, it’s super sturdy, it’s not so heavy and covers perfectly the catalytic converter, honestly way better than the oem plate.

Obviously it’s not all puppies and rainbows, there are some cons, mainly because of the added weight.
Crash bars weight is 5.6 Kg, skid plate weights 3 Kg, did they matter? Can I feel them?
Oh yes, It may not sound a lot but I can feel them, and honestly it’s not a bad thing.

The bike now feels a little bit more stuck to the road and I’m feeling more confident on tarmac specially on fast corners; it feels like I lowered the weight balance of the bike, which is not a bad thing considering that the T7 is known for having a really high weight balance point.

On the other hand the bike front wheel feels a little bit heavier, and any ground obstacle or hole feel heavier on the handlebar.

It’s interesting because the difference is almost subtle and I though I would not notice it, but I can feel it, it’s not bad, it’s… interesting.
It’s not like I’m riding a different bike, but I can still feel it, I’m sure It’s only a matter of time before for this new feeling to become normal.

Now it’s time to think to the next upgrade :)