Tenere 700 - Suspension tuning update - Vast improvements!

Riders looking to get more practical performance out of their bike (whether motorcycle or bicycle, for that matter) are wise to first invest in tires and then suspension. Suspension tuning is especially vital to getting the most from your ride. Unless you fit the manufacturer's narrow criteria for rider weight (and many Japanese bikes are under-spring from the factory), chances are your bike will not handle as well as it could--especially on rough terrain.

Accelerated Technologies just north of Peterborough, Ontario, specializes in suspension tuning for all manner of vehicles, but especially sleds, ATVs, and motorbikes. John Sharrard, the brains and owner of the operation, is a former professional racer with championship titles to his name as well as some serious chops as a factory race tech for Honda and Yamaha. He had previously worked magic on my WR250R, completely transforming its off-road and on-road handling. Thus inspired, I was eager to bring him my 2021 Tenere 700 at the end of my first season with the bike, looking for a similar transformation. 

Having read countless online discussions about tuning the Tenere, a clear consensus emerged on the limitations of the factory setup. Mainly: the rear is under-sprung for riders above 165 lbs; putting in a stiffer shock spring requires additional damping beyond what the stock valving will achieve; and there are many complaints with high-speed compression damping front and rear. In addition, many people report that the clickers (fork and shock) have a much narrower range of effectiveness than the total number of potential clicks would suggest--imposing further limits on what damping you can achieve with the stock valving. Unfortunately, you need to modify the suspension if you're heavier than 75kg/165lbs and you plan to push the bike around in the dirt as it was intended to be used. 

For reference, I'm 91kg/200lbs in my birthday suit and 104kg/230lb in my riding suit. The tuning plan was to choose springs based on just me on the bike with no luggage and no preload applied so I'd have maximum range on the preload adjustment for when carrying luggage. That meant changing the shock spring. Interestingly, his sag measurements suggested that the factory fork springs were sufficiently rated--a bit of a surprise to me, given some of the online discussions I'd seen. 

Originally, I had installed an 80N-m shock spring from Rally Raid as well as the Rally Raid preload fork caps. While the stiffer shock spring reduced bottoming, John's opinion was that it still wasn't stiff enough. In fact, he noted that my shock appears to have bottomed even without luggage, so he wondered if that was the source of the harshness I'd felt. (However, I suspect the o-ring was in its lowest position based on other work I'd done.) John also felt the Rally Raid spring was the wrong dimensions for the application, so he replaced it with a longer version rated to 98N-m. As for re-valving, we agreed on a linear strategy to stiffen up the compression damping front and rear. This can be tricky to get right with a progressive linkage in the rear, so we just had to try something and go from there. 

By the time the first re-valving was completed, it was winter (-20C and snow) and unsafe to do a proper test ride. So I had to wait until spring to finally try it. Unfortunately, as soon as I hit the bumpy spring roads, I found the new setup to be extremely harsh. Low-speed compression damping could be managed by the clickers, but high-speed compression damping was so harsh that the bike would catch air off small expansion joints. Dirt roads and stutter bumps were a nightmare to ride at all but the lowest (or unsafely highest) speeds. And hitting any minor pothole or rock was like getting a 2x4 in my backside--leading to a wipeout on one trail that was obviously caused by the wheels pinging off ruts instead of rolling through them. Forget about hitting a pothole while cornering. The bike was simply far too harsh to ride for any length of time except on the smoothest roads or while standing. The high-speed compression damping needed to be dialled way back--but at least we now had some goalposts to work from. 

Below are the shock and fork setup notes from Accelerated Technologies. The details may be a little hard to decipher, so I've tried to decipher them below.

Shock tuning

Factory shock valving (9 valve shims):

• 34 x 0.15
• 32 x 2.0
• 30 x 0.20
• 28 x 0.20
• 26 x 0.20
• 22 x 0.20
• 20 x 0.25
• 20 x 0.25

Shock revalving attempt #1 (done at end of first season; red indicates the changes from factory):

• 24 x 0.10
• 32 x 2.0
• 30 x 0.20
• 28 x 0.20
• 26 x 0.20
• 22 x 0.20
• 20 x 0.20
• 18 x 0.20
• 16 x 0.20
• Washer

As noted, this setup was way too harsh and unrideable. Not recommended! Back to Accelerated Technologies for round #2. This time I rode my bike there and back - 650km in a day, to allow for testing. I brought my camping gear and set up in the back lot while they worked on my bike. Happy company with Bear, the shop dog, who was probably more interested in my lunch. 

Shock revalving attempt #2 (only 8 valve shims):

• 30 x 0.20
• 28 x 0.25
• 26 x 0.25
• 24 x 0.25
• 22 x 0.25
• 20 x 0.25
• 18 x 0.30 (qty 2)

Fork tuning

Factory fork compression valving:

• 16 x 0.10 (qty 5)
• 12 x 0.10 (transition)
• 16 x 0.10
• 14 x 0.10
• 12 x 0.15
• 10 x 0.15
• 16 Washer

Fork compression re-valving attempt #1 (red indicates changes from factory):

• 16 x 0.15
• 16 x 0.10 (qty 5)
• 12 x 0.10 (transition)
• 16 x 0.15
• 15 x 0.10 (qty 4)
• 14 x 0.15
• 12 x 0.15
• 10 x 0.15
• 16 x 0.30 washer (qty 2) to expose more threads for additional shims

Note: the above tuning was too harsh, but not as bad as the shock felt. 

Fork compression re-valving attempt #2:

• 16 x 0.15
• 16 x 0.10 (qty 4)
• 10 x 0.10 (transition)
• 16 x 0.10
• 15 x 0.10 (qty 2)
• 14 x 0.15
• 12 x 0.15
• 10 x 0.15
• 16 x 0.30 washer (qty 2) - Note: not sure if this was added in the revised stack

Factory fork rebound damping:

• 16 x 0.10 (qty 5)
• 10 x 0.10
• 16 x 0.10
• 14 x 0.10
• 12 x 0.10
• 10 x 0.10
• 8 x 0.15

Fork rebound damping attempt #1 (changes in red; this worked well, so we didn't adjust it during second re-valving)

• 16 x 0.15
• 16 x 0.10 (qty 5)
• 10 x 0.10
• 16 x 0.10
• 14 x 0.10
• 12 x 0.10
• 10 x 0.10
• 8 x 0.15

Forks used 100mm of Motul 5 Wt full synthetic fork oil. As John said, if you're not sure what level of oil to choose, go with 100mm because it is almost always perfect, leaving you just enough air as a bumper. 

Setup #2 works very well, as I discovered first through several kilometres of testing with an unladen bike on a forest road near the shop, while stopping frequently to assess maximum suspension travel on the shock and forks. Grip on loose surfaces (especially uphill and downhill) was vastly improved, as was overall handling and braking. (On a historical note, this forest road is known locally as the "Oregon Trail". It's the original road allowance and homesteader trail for what later became County Road 39, located nearby. Gotta love those "lost" roads!)

On the ride home, I gave the fully laden bike (with five clicks of preload) a real workout on a mix of rough pavement and over 100km of rough forest roads. Again, the bike handled brilliantly under all conditions,  and used up the full range of suspension travel without noticeable bottoming, as evidenced by the position of the o-rings on the fork and shock.

It wasn't cheap, but it was well worth the expense to tune the Tenere in this manner. If I was to spend more money on tuning, it would be to upgrade the pistons for better bottoming feel. But realistically, I'm not a hard rider. Most of my riding is in the range of 50-100km/hr on dirt roads, with my sweet spot between 40-80 km/hr so I can enjoy the scenery. While I'm not taking jumps or looking to thrash my bike, I do insist on having the wheels follow the ground when they're supposed to ensure control. For me, the investment has resulted in a great setup and a lot more confidence on mixed surfaces.

Review: CamelADV high exhaust for the Tenere 700

The Tenere's low-mounted exhaust has earned some rightful criticism for its tendency to bend into the swingarm if you drop the bike the wrong way. Since I was wanting to avoid this problem while losing some weight off the stock exhaust, I was excited to hear about CamelADV's project to develop a high exhaust kit. After plunking down a pre-order I then had to wait patiently over last winter for CamelADV to work through the logistical nightmare of shipping and receiving overseas goods in the middle of a pandemic. But in the end it all arrived well before riding season, and Cory was awesome about keeping everyone up to date on progress. 

Cory has already posted lots of good info about the exhaust at CamelADV, so I won't repeat that here. The exhaust pipe is beautifully made, the materials and fit are top-notch, and the results look great. Having now put a couple thousand kilometres on my exhaust, here are observations that may help if you're considering ordering one for your Tenere.

You have to cut your factory exhaust mount

Since the CamelADV silencer mounts higher than the stock silencer, there's no easy way to use the stock exhaust hanger which is welded to the rear subframe. So you need to cut it off. CamelADV includes an ingenious metal template to precisely locate the cuts, and a regular hacksaw will suffice if you're careful and patient. Just follow the excellent video on the CamelADV site. Some people may not like the idea of cutting their frame, but when you consider the OEM bracket is welded on, if you drop the bike on the exhaust you're likely to bend the hanger or subframe given the leverage of the long exhaust mount. The CamelADV approach reduces the leverage and beefs up the mount with a machined billet part. So realistically, adopting the CamelADV exhaust almost certainly makes your Tenere more robust in this area. 

CamelADV has suggested they may make a kit to return the exhaust hanger to stock. I imagine a simple steel rod insert would work fine, so I'm not too concerned if something needs to be done in this respect.

The silencer is LOUD!

CamelADV has chosen a generic silencer. It seems reasonably well made and is a good deal lighter than the stock silencer (at 3kg, it's about half the weight), which is important for handling given its higher location. However, I was actually mortified the first time I rode out because suddenly I was conspicuously like all those straight-pipe cruisers that drive me crazy when they're revving pat my house. This exhaust is not gonna be popular in the backwoods if discretion is required. 

Uncorked, the silencer delivers a guttural, savage, animal bark which I must admit sounds pretty awesome at idle and when blipping the throttle. But the problems arises when accelerating and cruising at 5000-6000 rpm (highway speeds). The combination of high tailpipe location and tone quickly becomes headache-inducing even with earplugs in and a quiet helmet (Shoei Hornet). Fortunately the silencer includes a dB-killer, which I now run with all the time (despite trying hard to get used to running without it). It makes the exhaust perfectly tolerable. Once again I can hear music and conversations in my headset, and vlogging isn't a monologue of exhaust note. However, the hole on the dB killer is rather small so I wouldn't be surprised if it reduces engine power, especially at higher RPMs. While a seat-of-the-pants test doesn't suggest a difference, I may experiment with enlarging the hole to something closer to stock. If that doesn't work, I may look for a different silencer. 

It fits with the RideADV pannier racks

Greg at RideADV Tours in Australia has some excellent Youtube videos describing mods for the Tenere 700. Since he runs a tour company, he and his crew have now put over 150,000 km of rough, real-world testing into their fleet of Teneres over the past two years, trying different suspension, tires, luggage, and other accessories to find that optimal mix for hard ADV performance. They really flog the bikes under ADV conditions similar to those in my area. I connected with Greg about the pannier racks they were developing and learned that he and Cory at CamelADV had also connected with each other to swap gear. They were able to determine that the CamelADV exhaust fits with the RideADV custom pannier racks. These racks are pretty interesting and I'll share details about them in a future post. Unlike all other racks I've seen for the Tenere, these ones hug the frame forward and low, in an optimal position to centralize mass and support soft or hard luggage on rough roads. Having tried rackless panniers last year, I concluded I didn't like how they flopped around on rough terrain despite some aggressive strapping approaches, and I reverted to a rack approach even though it means extra weight. 

The following pics are from Greg and show the prototype racks in his shop in Australia. (Note that he runs without the dB killer. As he told me, "I'm in the middle of bugger-all and it keeps the 'roos away!") Based on this, I ordered the racks. More on that to come...

Conclusion

It's a top-quality kit at a reasonable price that solves a minor design flaw of the Tenere 700 for offroad riding. The silencer is generic and, in my view, intolerably loud if you need to do a lot of highway miles or don't want to be "that guy". It's perfectly fine with the dB killer inserted and still sounds great. Unknown if the dB killer reduces performance. Unknown what other silencers may fit the kit geometry without requiring modifications to the connector pipe or hanger mount.

Review: Cyclops Aurora lights on the Tenere 700

In my part of the world (Eastern Ontario, Canada) dusk is when all the critters start to hang out on the road. And critters like deer are best detected and avoided long before they spring unpredictably across your path. The stock LED headlight on the Tenere 700 is pretty good for conspicuity in traffic but is so-so at best for night-time illumination. It is unlikely to show you deer lurking on the shoulder. So, if you plan to ride often at dusk or at night, auxiliary lights are going to be a valuable safety upgrade to increase your field and range of illumination over the Tenere's stock lighting. 

Years ago I outfitted my WR250R with a pair of 40W, 4-emitter LED lights from Fenix (similar to a Denali option) that turned night into day. They are especially helpful on dark forest trails during the shoulder seasons. While this would be great lighting on the Tenere, I figured it would be overkill because the headlight is already so much better than the anemic candle on the WRR. So I began to look for smaller, lighter auxiliary lights that could double as conspicuity lights.

After much searching I converged on the Cyclops Aurora LED lights. The build quality is excellent and the size (2" dia.) and illumination pattern seemed to be a good compromise over the tanning lights on my WRR, and over other, cheaper options I considered. 

I also recommend the orange halo feature which can be ordered optionally. It's not obvious from the product marketing photos, but adding the halo doesn't reduce the main lighting area. Rather, it converts an otherwise opaque section of the lens perimeter into an orange-lit halo illuminated by a second LED cluster with its own separate wiring. This arrangement gives you the flexibility to pair the halo with a turn signal or wire it always-on for conspicuity lighting; I opted for the latter. And since the halo is extremely bright, it's very conspicuous! For the style-conscious, mounting the Cyclops lights under the round headlights really completes the bug-eye theme of the Tenere's face. 

Fully lit, each Cyclops Aurora proves 19W of main LED lighting. That's plenty to through a beam a few hundred metres ahead with a decent spread to the light up the sides of the road. The result is a more complete wash of the way ahead than the OEM headlights alone achieve, especially with their sharp horizontal cutoff. The halos alone are also extremely bright and provide a substantial orange wash on the road ahead.

As for mounting the lights, there are few after-market brackets available. I wanted one that mounted to the lower triple clamp so the lights would turn with the bike (since the headlight doesn't). The best quality option I found was from Rugged Roads, although the OEM in the UK didn't have stock so I had to order from Germany (and it was cheaper than ordering from the manufacturer!). The bracket is top quality, nicely finished, and provides a sturdy and discreet mount for the lights in a relatively protected location. Note that if you've installed the high-fender kit on the Tenere, you will likely need to consider another mounting option since this bracket uses the high fender bolt holes. 

When I ordered the lights I didn't notice there's a special harness option available for the Tenere 700. Turns out you need this harness. I had intended to make my own harness using OEM connectors ordered from Eastern Beaver, and even rigged it all up only to discover that the Tenere uses a non-standard method to turn on the high beams: The ECU effectively grounds the high-beam circuit in the headlight to illuminate the additional LEDs. This is the opposite of typical high-beam lights and how most aftermarket auxiliary lights are controlled. These typically rely on 12V being supplied via the high beam lead when you flick the high beam switch. On the Tenere, you'd need a way to invert the control signal  Sure, there are some solid-state relays available that can trigger when switched from 12V to 0V, but by the time you factor in sourcing the parts and rigging the circuit, you're much better off just ordering the harness from Cyclops. It's only about $75 (don't quote me on that). Cyclops was generous enough to ship me just the harness (which normally isn't sold separately) when I called them to explain my situation.  

The high-beam wire is located on the right side of the dash near the turn signal plug. It's the yellow wire in the 6-position connector. I removed the pin and spliced in a heat-shrink-covered pigtail with a bullet connector to attach to the Cyclops harness. This makes it easy to revert to stock, and I don't like piercing insulation with wiretaps since that can allow moisture ingress leading to corrosion.

The Cyclops harness plugs into the Tenere's left side auxiliary connector (white; near the indicator connector) which is switched with the ignition. 

The Tenere includes four auxiliary connectors at the front: a triangular three-pin connector on each side intended for heated grips and auxiliary lights; and a rectangular two-pin connector on each side for accessories that mount in the dash holes. (Note that the left accessory plug powers the 12V plug on the dash; the other accessory plug is unused on my bike because it requires an obscure connector that I haven't gotten around to switching for something waterproof and more readily available. However, I'm likely to rig it to power the double USB port on my dash which is currently wired into the PC-8.) Since I had already used the righthand three-pin connector to plug in my Eastern Beaver PC-8 expansion box (so it would turn on with the ignition), I routed all the Cyclops wiring to the left side. 

Wiring the lights was initially a bit of a chore, mainly because of the lack of room to tuck away the extra wiring. I won't describe the gong-show of different options I tried to hide the relay and wiring inside the headlight housing. Don't waste your time with this approach. It would be the neatest, but it just doesn't fit because of the Cyclops switch relay, and it also creates the problem of being a pain to access in the event of an electrical gremlin.  

The method Cyclops recommended to position the wiring didn't seem very practical to me so I experimented with some different approaches. In the end, I mounted the slack wiring as a vertical loop against the left fork inside the triple clamp, positioning the connectors in this location with a short section of bicycle inner tube for mechanical protection, and zip-typing the whole mess to the fork tube. The relay and excess wiring got zip-tied to the plastic frame mount near the aux connectors, where it's easily accessible by removing the left body panel and is reasonably well protected from rain and splashes. Overall, the arrangement minimizes flexing of the wires and keeps it clear of the other wire and cable spaghetti in this area when turning the bars. 

After a few thousand kilometres of riding the lights have performed very well. The orange glow really seems to catch people's eyes and it makes a striking front-end for the Tenere. Illumination is greatly improved and the beam spread is easily adjustable to ensure both a good wash of area lighting (looking a bit wall-eyed on my bike) as well as a safe cutoff height to reduce the risk of blinding of oncomers. While a dimmer can be used with these lights (and I use a Skene with my WRR setup), I don't feel it's necessary given the always-on conspicuity of the orange halo by itself. Flicking the high beams gives that extra sauce for max visibility. 

My only complaint with the lights is the factory strain relief on the aluminum housing seems to be an inflexible material, causing the external insulation to pull back from the internal wiring. While I could tuck it back together, this is a weakness in the environmental integrity that I'll need to keep an eye on. Some silicone tape or sealant may be needed to ensure a better mechanical connection in this location.