After struggling to change his Tenere 700 tyres , Ray has found a mechanical helping hand .

Just over three years ago I found myself justifying to my wife why I should buy a Tenere 700 . I remember saying “ It ’ s the one bike to rule them all !” The theory I put forward was that I could sell my dirt bike and MT-07 , then take the Tenere to trail rides and during the week it would perform the commuting duties as well . It worked . Since then , I ’ ve covered over 45,000km on the T7 in a mixture of commuting and a load of adventure rides around the country , but I ’ ve only done one organised trail ride ... and only one 30km loop at that . Why ? Mainly because of the tyres . Adventure tyres are fine for the 42nd Traverse or Molesworth ... but when you get properly offroad - trail ride off-road - you really want the bike to be rolling on knobblies . The problem is , knobblies wear out far too quickly on the seal to commute on them . I figured I had a couple of options ... get really good at changing tyres on my garage floor , buy shares in a motorcycle workshop , or buy a second set of rims . None of those ideas really tickled me . I thought there must be another option .