DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS
The middleweight adventure class is arguably motorcycling’s most vibrant, and the 790 Adventure and Ténéré 700 are among its biggest stars. The Adventure sees KTM attach its dual-sport values to the popular 790 Duke, while the Ténéré applies Yamaha’s desert-race heritage to the hugely successful MT-07.
Bikes like these make plenty of sense. Open-class adventure bikes have sold in huge numbers of late, but as their performance and sophistication have increased, so too have their size, weight and cost – creating an obvious gap for smaller, lighter and less expensive alternatives.
A mid-capacity dual-purpose model has long seemed logical from KTM, whose multi-cylinder range began in 2003 with the Dakar racer-inspired Adventure 950. Since then the firm’s Adventure V-twins have grown to 1290cc, leaving a sizeable gap to the single-cylinder 690 Enduro R. The 790 Adventure splits the difference neatly.
Meanwhile, the obvious question for Yamaha is why did this latest in a long line of Ténérés take so long? The 689cc MT-07 led Yamaha’s comeback in 2014, soon sparking retro and sports-touring spin-offs. But this latest Ténéré arrived five years behind, following an extensive and delayed development programme. The two firms reached very different answers to the key question of where in the road/off-road space to pitch their parallel-twin contenders. KTM decided that a single model would not suffice, partly because their Ready To Race philosophy demanded an ultra-capable off-roader. This became the Adventure R, allowing the standard 790 Adventure, tested here, to have more of a road-going focus.
By contrast Takushio Shiraishi, the Ténéré’s project leader, regarded making two separate models as “cheating”. Conscious of the Ténéré’s desert-race heritage, he decided to
