INTERVIEW- Leon Oosterhof Yamaha EU Motorcycle product management lead
“ Sometimes it’ s easier to make an improvement to a product that is less successful, so yes, when it came to the best-selling Ténéré, we took extra care over the updating. The 2019 Ténéré 700 was very much embraced by our customers and they appreciated the format so for this update we had to keep true to our concepts both in terms of riding but also how it looks and feels. So, in the boardroom we said, let’ s simply go back to our roots, which is following our customers, what do our customers want? We go to the ABR Festival, we do surveys, we talk, we are part of T7 clubs, and all these years we haven’ t stopped gathering input. We took, let’ s call it, the top 15 points that were mentioned most and we have been working on those.“ We know the Ténéré 700 covers everything from gentle adventure through to hard rally, so you could also have 15 very diverse points, like requests for full race-spec suspension or more luggage! It is quite funny, in 2024 answering those diverse requests, if you include the World Raid and the World Rally, we ended up with like six or seven variations. There was a point where we went, hang on this is just getting crazy! So in the end, we took on those top 15 points, but we’ ve made a little bit of a redefinition of our lineup, made it a little bit simpler. It’ s a matured range, and I think in the end this is easier for customers to understand.“ Obviously the next question is what happens with the World Raid and Rally, but at the moment we cannot say something about the future, but for sure we will continue with the World models as we really believe that there is still a strong audience for those.“ In the end I am happy with the result of the 2025 Ténéré 700 package, with better suspension and much more room to play with, it’ s overall a better bike. For me, very personally for my usage, I think the Rally is excellent, my favourite, because of the suspension, it soaks up all of the terrain, makes you become a better rider and it gives you so much confidence that you dare to do stuff which you thought,‘ like hang on am I sure about this?!’”
80 KIWI RIDER