I’m not veteran rider. The Honda CB500X was my first bike and the Yamaha T7 is my second. I rode the Honda 60,000 miles overland on a round trip to India, and when I got back I started looking for an upgrade.
The CB500X was an excellent beginner motorcycle and an even better travel companion. It allowed me to learn and didn’t complain when I pushed it to its limits so I could discover my own riding style. It was an experience that I feel was essential in figuring out what I want and need from a travel motorcycle.
Throughout the trip I fell in love with dirt riding, but found (despite heavily upgraded suspension) that the CB500X is just not an off-road machine. Everything else was fine – although an extra ten horses would have definitely helped shifting its 200kg around.
So, I was looking for a bike that weighed 200kg max (the lighter the better), 21 and 18 inch wheels, reasonable suspension, minimal to no electronics, ideally two cylinders and a liquid-cooled engine with about 10 more bhp. And all of that without breaking the bank.
There weren’t many options back in 2019, so I whittled it down to testing the Yamaha Tenere 700 and AJP PR7. I test rode the PR7 but wasn’t used to a big single and concluded that I could not do my usual 600-mile a day teleportation on it without being vibrated to death. T7 it was then!