There are Ténéré tragics. And there are Ténéré 700 tragics. And then you get the truly tragic types who cover all genres of the Ténéré bloodline by having a fleet of Ténérés both old and new in their shed.
I’m talking about blokes like Rod Faggotter. You may have heard of him? He goes alright on a dirtbike and has stacked a few trophies on his mantelpiece over the years. He’s long been the Yamaha dealer at Longreach in central Queensland and has bLU blood pumping through his veins.
And he loves a Ténéré. He’s got a couple of ripping classics: a first-model 1983 XT600ZL Ténéré, no less, as well as a ground-pounding early-model twin-cylinder XTZ750 Super Ténéré. That’s tragic enough for most.
But then you get to his love affair with the modern-day Ténéré 700. He’s got not one, not two, but three of them! Give him a bit more time and he’ll likely soon have one for every day of the week. Seriously.
Rocket Rod jokes that he needs three T7s so as to satisfy the various moods he might be in when he wants a spell from working the spare parts counter at his Longreach dealership, Centretune Motorcycles.
“That’s precisely it,” Rocket explains. “Some days I might just want to cruise off into the outback, so that’s when the A-Spec (adventure) T7
