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 :)

Time for a gift to my beloved Noraly (and to my also beloved butt), finally my new Seat Concept seat is arrived and I’ve been able to test it on a few trips.

When I bought my T7 I immediately also bought an OEM Yamaha Rally seat because I’m 193 cm and the standard seat was a bit too low for me. The Rally seat is very very beautiful and its height is perfect for me, I’m able to flatfoot easily and my riding position is perfect, however there was a problem: sore butt.

At first I was struggling after only half an hour of riding with tingling legs and sore butt, and I was absolutely sure that the main problem was practice.
With more and more travels this problem became less and less annoying, after a few months I was able to ride up to almost 3 hours without any tingling or pain, I was able to get some relief changing my riding position frequently or standing on my footpegs, but still I can’t say It was a comfortable ride.

At that point I started to look for some aftermarket seats, and throught https://tenere700.net I was able to get a discount for the new Seat Concepts products, in particolar I was interested in the new one piece tall comfort seat.
The price is good, shipping from USA is expensive but I was able to get a nice discount from the official Seat Concepts seller on tenere700.net, and the total price was almost the same as the OEM Yamaha Rally seat; sadly I live in Italy and our famous bureaucracy decided that I had to pay 120 extra € for custom fees and taxes (a tax on a tax, can you beleave it? :\ ).

Seat Concept’s customer care was also super good and very kind, they’ll help you in any possible way to choose the best seat for your needs considering your riding style, your weight, how tall are you and so on. You can choose you seat details, colors, materials and also what kind of foam is better for you.

And here we are, finally the seat is arrived and my firts impression was WOW!
The seat is so wide compared to the rally seat (which is very narrow, also compared to the standard T7 seat) and the foaming is slightly softer than the standard and the rally seat (I let Seat Concepts choose the right foam for my weight and riding style).
The seat height is the same as the rally seat, but because of it’s shape it feels like it’s a little bit higher.
The comfort is great, compared to the rally seat it feels like a top class sofa, and thanks to it’s shape now my knees angle is wider and using shifting or brake pedals is much more comfortable and feels more natural than before.

The only issue I can think about it is that the small underseat storage room is the same as the standard seat, and smaller to the rally seat I was used to, so I had to adjust my emergency tools and documents pocket to it, but as you can imagine this is not big deal.

In the end I think I made the right coice, the seat is perfect for my needs, it’s really comfortable on the street and don’t interfere at all when you standup on your footpegs during offroad.
The price is reasonable and the customer care is awesome, I only hope that some day Seat Concepts will have some EU store or reseller.

Today I did my longest trip so far, around 160 Km, here is what I learned.

Lesson number three: be humble
I know, this may sound obvious but it’s always good to remember.
You have your first bike, you have your license, you have your safety gear, what can go wrong? Well everything.
No, nothing bad happened to me, but the more I ride the more I understand there’s always something to learn, and the moment you feel too comfortable is the moment you’re closer to make mistakes, bad mistakes.
A few days ago I went to a grocery store for buying some stuff, while I was coming back there was a bump in the road and I though I was some sort of enduro superstar, so I was standing on my footpegs just before a turn. I was too fast for it so I started to brake, but while I was braking I was still twisting a little bit the thrust and I almost crushed on the side of the road on a small wall.
Thanks to the ABS I stopped… but I went so close to ruin my day. In that case I don’t think I can get some injury because I was not that fast, I was riding on an empty street and nobody else was involved… but it was a good lesson :’

Lesson number four: your body needs to adjust to riding
Serious adventure riders can ride for hours, hours, hours, and if you look to their fantstic videos you can think that’s a piece of cake, right?
Well, no :)
I’m not speaking about commuting or a small 50Km trip, I’m speaking about riding for 200-300 Km a day, that’s exhausting for your body.
Don’t get me wrong, you can do it, but you need your body to get used to it, you need training and, most important, you need to be patient, Rome was not built in a day, right?
The last time I went to the lake I did about 100Km with one break in the middle, when I returned home I was happy as a child but my legs were really really tired and specially my butt was hurting.
Today I did 160 Km in total, I did 3 breaks; when I stopped for the first break my butt was hurting and I felt my legs tingling a little bit, after a 5 minutes break I was as good as new, same after each of the other breaks.
At the end of the day the trip was fantastic and I was really happy, I felt like I was able to go around the world and more… but no, remember the previous point, be humble, be patient and train yourself :)

I decided to create a new series of posts about my experience as a newbie biker, I thought it can be fun to read it in a few years and maybe It can be useful to other new bikers to avoid my errors or to better understand the most common problems.

Lesson number one: don’t trust the fuel indicator on your bike.
Looking to older bikes without any fuel indicator (only the reserve light) I always thought how people can use them, I mean how can you plan any trip without knowing how much fuel do you have in your tank?!?
Well, my bike has a beautiful fuel indicator on its dashboard, I won’t say it’s useless, but honestly it’s not accurate at all or at least it’s not as useful as in cars.
If you think about it it’s perfectly normal, bikes have smaller tanks than cars (my bike has a 16l tank), bike’s tank has a totally different shape than car’s one, so accelerations and turning around makes the fuel move much more inside the tank and the tank sensors can’t always get the exact amount of fuel in the tank itself.
Don’t get me wrong, fuel indicators are useful but they are not very precise, so one thing you must learn is to reset the trip counter after each refueling, after a while you know how many Km you can travel before the fuel reserve.

Lesson number two: never downshift multiple times without releasing the clutch.
Gears on a bike are different from cars, multiple downshifting on cars is not recommended but it’s not a big deal, on bikes can cause problems or can get shifting stucked.
I usually don’t do it, it happened to me a couple of times while I was stopping suddenly, and after that I noticed that my gear indicator and the shift pedal seems to be stucked; solving the problem was easy, I was standing still and I only had to slowly release the clutch while moving the bike a little bit forward using my feet, in this way the shifting started working again and everything was fine.
I repeat, It can happen specially if you’re new to bikes, but don’t do it on purpose. Each time you make a downshift release the clutch, even for a couple of seconds, the engine will help you to slow down and you’ll make your gears work properly.

And now a pic from my today trip, the longest so far on my biker career, around 100 Km to the nearest lake to my little town ;P

Finally the day I dreamed for so long arrived!
I waited for so long, with so many doubts “will I use it or it will stay forever in the garage?”, “will I be able to manage it?”, “will I waste my money?” and many more… I waited until my fourties… and then something happened.
I don’t know if the cause was the pandemic, its madness and its sadness, I live right in the middle of the two hottest areas of the first COVID-19 wave in Italy, maybe the most dangerous place in the world one year ago; back then everybody in this regione lost someone because of the virus, maybe this tragedy pushed me and finally I said “let’s do it!”.

However It was a wild ride, when I went to the driving school for the bike driving license everything was shutting down, I had to wait more than 6 months to get the opportunity the do the exam for it, and after that there was a really tiny probability to get the bike in o couple of months, otherwise I would probably had to wait at least 6 months, if not a whole year.

But I was lucky, It took less than two months and finally I had the call from my dealer and now, a week later I got my Ténéré 700.

It was love at first sight, I love her lines, I love the technical choices Yamaha did, I love its simplicity, just after viewing some of the first reviews It was clear that she’s the one, the bike that can do everything, the “unicorn” everyone was waiting for.

I don’t want to go into technical details, there a a ton of reviews online, but I read a lot of people saying the T7 is not a good bike for a beginner, in this post I want to give my feedback as a beginner, and why I think the T7 is a wonderful bike for a beginner that want an adventure bike.

Engine.
The Yamaha T7 uses a twin parallel engine with around 74-75 HP, with a lot of torque at low rpms.
The power is well enough for everything, cruising, twisties and off-road; I have no experience with off-road riding (exactly one hour ago I did my first test in the small country roads near my house) but people more experienced says this is perfect for it, from a newbie perspective it’s also perfect because It will give you thrust in every condition, are you messing with the gears and you’re super low on rpms on a high gear? No problem, the T7 will get you out of trouble with a simple twist of your right hand.
I remember the bike I used for my training on the driving school, It was a Kawasaki ER6, and it was a nightmare on those situations. on 2nd gear at low rpms the bike was like a crazy horse jumping around with so many vibrations and force you to work with the clutch to not get stuck; on the T7 it’s a pleasure, seems like another universe.

Riding position
Not a lot to say: It’s simply perfect, it’s comfortable, you have everything on sight and as a beginner it gives you a lot of confidence.

Weight
It’s the lightest between adventure bikes, so it’s absolutely light? No, when you stand still and move the bike left and right you can feel its weight.
Does this change anything between a newbie and an experienced rider? No, the bike weight is still the same, and if you drop it it’s hard for everyone.
From a newbie point of view the only important thing is that the bike is incredibly light when you’re riding, also on really tight turns you always feel everything under control (It was not the same on the ER6, on 180° tight turns I felt the bike almost falling).

Electronics
On this aspect people tend to consider the T7 not a good bike for newbies because it only has ABS, no traction control, no driving maps, no cruise control, in other words no fancy electronics.
As a beginner I disagree, as a beginner I don’t want to get my errors fixed by some automagic fancy eletronics, I want to understand what I’m doing wrong, I want to feel my bike, I want to learn if It’s ok or if I’m pushing too much on my actual limits.
Electronic stuff maybe can help you avoid some danger situations, but I prefer to understand them and fix them myself, hiding problems will not solve them, and I want to learn and be a better rider.
So imho it’s better to have a bike with the right amount of power, with a good riding position, a good design that makes you feel comfortable and (almost, there’s ABS, but you can disable it on the rear wheel for off-road) no electronics, than a too powerful and unpredictable bike with a lot of electronics to make you able to do the same things.

Price
Well price is subjective, imho 10k € for an adventure bike with such a good engine and so capable to do everything is a good price.
Some will argue that It has no electronics (check the previous paragraph), It has no tubeless tires (for someone it’s an advantage, for someone else is a con) or some cheap plastics, honestly I prefer to spend my money for good fundamentals, a good frame, a good engine, and good ride position than for electronics, nice plastics or tubeless tires (you can always convert tube wheels to tubeless if you want).

Cons?
Yes there are cons on the T7, as I said before the weight can be tricky but it’s not something you can solve with experience.
It’s an high bike, but that’s a con only for short people, I bought mine with the rally seat (a couple of cm higher than the standard seat), for me it’s perfect and I’m able to flatfoot in any situation.

Why Noraly?
Well, that’s the name I choosed for my T7, it’s because I wanna thank Noraly “Itchy Boots” an incredible woman that inspired me so much, maybe (or maybe not, who knows? :P) I will not be able to do the incredible travels she did, but she made me dream, and the dream today is come true and I can ride on it. :)
I strongly suggest you to follow here on https://www.itchyboots.com/ and her Youtube channel.