Yamaha Ténéré 700 Raid Prototype First Look

Peon Maface · November 23, 2021

Well the seat was a little high, at 34.6 inches, but that didn’t stop the Yamaha Ténéré 700 from doing very well in last summer’s blockbuster middleweight ADV comparison. Keeping it simple and keeping the weight down was a great recipe for success, and now Yamaha is fixin’ to take it to the next level with a Ténéré 700 Raid, for which this machine it showed at EICMA serves as prototype.

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Photo by Ryan Adams from Yamaha’s booth at EICMA.

Enlisting the aid of its top riders for advice, and borrowing freely from the GYT-R performance parts catalog results in a bike that looks like it’s ready for whatever you can muster; a Starbucks run should be no problem. We have a few snaps from Yamaha’s booth at EICMA below.

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Yamaha Press Release:

Racing for the Next Horizon

Since its introduction the Ténéré 700 has become a hugely successful model for Yamaha, with massive demand throughout Europe for this versatile and agile adventure bike. With its legendary high-torque CP2 engine, compact chassis and long-travel suspension, the Ténéré has proved to be the bike that many riders have been waiting for; a worthy successor to the original machine that kick-started the Adventure category in the 1980s and made world exploration a reality for thousands of owners.

The Ténéré 700’s serious off-road abilities have enabled many thousands of riders to satisfy their spirit of adventure by getting involved in long distance road trips, as well as rallies and extreme adventure rides. Many owners have invested efforts in personalising their Ténéré 700, and their shared stories have inspired a new generation of explorers to push their limits and discover what is beyond the next horizon.

This growing movement has motivated Yamaha to study how to take the Ténéré 700 to the next level, and to re-visit the legendary African desert scapes where the original Ténéré was born over 40 years ago. Today Yamaha is proud to start writing a new chapter in the Ténéré story with the unveiling of the Ténéré 700 Raid Prototype, which has been built with extensive usage of GYTR (Genuine Yamaha Technology Racing) performance parts.

This high-specification Raid bike has been developed in Europe by Yamaha leveraging the experience of off-road riders Alessandro Botturi and Pol Tarrés, with the aim of exploiting the full Raid potential of the Ténéré 700, extensively validated by the two Yamaha ambassadors in the Moroccan desert.

This is just the beginning.

The Ténéré 700 Raid Prototype will soon be racing for the next horizon, and write a new story that is sure to reinforce the Ténéré legend in the eyes of a new generation of Adventure riders.