PICS: GARY BARNES
When I was told the ‘boys in blue’ had been in touch I quickly packed a bag and scrambled my passport ready to hide in the far east corners of Kazakhstan, having recently been testing a multitude of mind-bendingly fast litre sportsbikes. Fortunately it turned out the reference was a nod to Yamaha’s Tenere 700 experience day over in Wales. I know what you’re thinking; off-road, big heavy bike, sex appeal akin to Susan Boyle clad in Bridget Jones’ granny pants winking at you from worryingly close quarters in the pub you frequent… and on the face of it I would have to agree with you. However bear with me, because it turns out SuBo has some functional tricks up her sleeve which may just have a stronger effect than the beer goggles you would ordinarily need!
As I drove through the world’s tightest roads where riding a supermoto would feel like driving an artic through a congested high street, I began to consider what I may be in for throughout the day ahead. To give a bit of context to my two-wheeled endeavours, I took to riding on the slippery brown stuff after spending plenty of years on the tarmac, which in turn incurred a pretty steep learning curve consisting of pulling grass out of my teeth, gravel from my arms and predominantly, the bike off the floor, many, many times. Unfortunately, riding a sportsbike on the road or track does not in any way, shape or form correlate to competence off-road; it’s a whole new skill set and even a 250cc will have you exuding brown smoke at the first twist of the throttle. Off-road riding didn’t come naturally to me; I felt I had started too late and gained too many bad habits already. This, and an innate determination to go at things full tilt following the old ‘If in doubt, flat out’ advice always seemed to result in a sloppy encounter, and not the type you would brag to your mates about. However, with a bit of perseverance and some awesome coaching from guys similar to the Yamaha off-road experience, my confidence grew and now my holidays are spent in the Isle of Man, Wales and the Yorkshire Moors, ripping across the natural landscapes on my Johnson extension of a KTM 450 EXC. So with that in mind, a reasonable amount of anticipation set in as to what a big, 204kg 700cc bruiser would be like across the tight, technical rocky trails and rock gardens I’m used to making an absolute hash of on my usual competition bike of literally half that weight, or rather whether we would even be attempting such harsh terrain? All I could envisage was a bigger, nastier, more painful crash combined with a considerably larger amount of effort to get to that inevitable compound fracture. Still, if there’s anywhere to barrel roll yourself and a bike down to an early grave, the amazing views within the Welsh forests we were set to rip up offered the perfect place to do it!