Return of the TRX?

IN a reversal of Honda's tactic of taking the fully-faired VFR1200F sports tourer and turning it into the Crosstourer adventure bike, Yamaha looks like it might be planning to use its new Super Tenere as the basis of a faired road bike.

New patents, revolving around the Tenere's shaft drive system, show it fitted to a faired road bike. Although these bare outlines show no detail, and may be there just as a generic representation of a motorcycle, it wouldn't be totally unimaginable for Yamaha to make such a machine.

Just as the original Super Tenere, the XTZ750, spawned the road-oriented TDM850 and the TRX850, it;'s unlikely that Yamaha has developed the entirely new 1200cc Super Tenere without giving some thought to other models it could spin off from the machine. Bear in mind that its main rival, BMW's R1200GS, shares its engine and much of its chassis with the R1200R and R1200RT – bikes in a totally different vein and yet still capable machines in their own right.

The Super Tenere's 109bhp twin and shaft drive would lend themselves to a tourer or even a VFR800-rivalling sports tourer while keeping development costs to a minimum, just as Honda has created the Crossrunner adventure sports bike by rehashing some old VFR800 parts and is planning on turning the VFR1200-based Crosstourer concept into a production machine in the near future.