Big, powerful, feature-laden bikes have a special kind of magic allure and we’ve seen most of the manufacturers surfacing at least one version of the 1200cc-class adventure bike during the last years. What used to be a light, trail-worthy bike has transformed into a huge, heavy, increasingly expensive beast, and Yamaha’s 2014 iteration of the Super Tenere is not making an exception.
Slowly, but steadily drifting to a more road-oriented type of touring, the 1200cc bikes have also become more of a computer on wheels. The Super Tenere, while still a very sweet ride, is also loaded with a heap of electronics which are aimed at increasing comfort and safety. While the goal is of course, a noble one, the big question is what happens when one of the electronic systems goes down in the middle of nowhere.
Electronically-adjustable suspensions with more settings than you can count, cruise control and multiple engine mappings and riding modes, they all are susceptible to fail. Far from being paranoid, it’s just the way things are in real life: older bikes seem more able to handle abuse, and most of them can be “field fixed”, as opposed to having to connect a laptop to the bike in the dealer’s workshop.
All in all, maybe these bike have not been created for too much rough riding, so if you’re only doing soft enduro, you should be just fine.
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