Rally Raid kit turns the Ténéré World Raid into all the bike you’ll ever need

UK-based adventure component specialists Rally Raid Products have turned their attention to the Yamaha Ténéré 700 World Raid after the huge success they had with the original T7 machine.

Rally Raid took delivery of one of the first T7s in the country after owner John Mitchison spotted its potential, but he knew even before riding it the suspension would need some work for the rough stuff.

“Yamaha are known for their bulletproof engines but when launched it was a cheap bike, so they must have saved money somewhere,” says John. “We designed a whole range of parts for that bike, including multiple different front and rear suspension kits, and they’ve sold well.

“Once the World Raid was announced, we wanted to offer people something similar, although we had a little bit of a head start on the announcement,” he continued.

What John is rather cheekily referring to here is Yamaha Europe’s love of the Rally Raid suspension kits.

Chances are you’ve seen those astonishing videos of Pol Tarrés making his T7 dance and racing it in hard enduro, but you might not know he had Rally Raid suspension fitted to his machine.

In fact, Tarrés was so impressed that when Yamaha built the World Raid prototype, they asked Rally Raid for one of their rear shocks to go in it. But what is it that makes them so nifty?

In many walks of life, bigger is better and the same holds true when it comes to motorcycle suspension. The key to the closed cartridge (where the oil and air are separated) fork upgrade that Rally Raid make is the size of the piston.

“The stock piston is 20mm in diameter,” says John. “Ours is 35mm, which increase the surface area for the shims by 350% and makes it the biggest on the market.

“The result is more precise and controlled damping, that can take little bumps well without getting upset by a big whoop or shock.”

The cartridge kit also has a hydraulic end stop, which avoids mechanical impacts at the end of the fork travel, unlike the stock unit, which can shatter internal components if it hits the end of the travel hard.

That’s not something which will happen on your average trail but a rally is a different matter. To pair with their own forks internals, Rally Raid worked with TracTive Suspension in the Netherlands to create a matching shock – again built to improve the damping when working hard.

The shock uses a dual piston set up at the rear (46mm main piston with 16mm rod), with a smaller second piston sitting on top of the main piston.

As the shock reaches the end of its travel, the second piston enters its own housing, increasing the damping resistance without mechanically overloading the shock with high oil pressure.

The result is a shock that doesn’t bottom out under strain while maintaining consistent damping in the earlier portion of the stroke.

The fork kit is available now in both standard travel and -25mm for £1199 while the rear shock is available, also in standard and -25mm, for £960.

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Hardcore Rally Raid Yamaha T7 ups the ante for tackling the toughest terrain

First published on 23 April by Jordan Gibbons

Rally Raid Products have once again made use of their engineering and off-road expertise to transform another machine. We love the T7 and so do Rally Raid owners, but as with all bikes built to a price, the Northants-based firm knew the suspension would need some work, so they partnered with Tractive in Holland to come up with plenty of options. 

• Related: Full Yamaha Tenere 700 review on MCN
• Related: How to ride your motorbike off road

For many riders the T7 feels undersprung, so RR are offering heavier springs for the rear shock with the stiffest ideal for a rider up to 100kg plus a passenger and luggage. They’ve also produced some fork preload caps that allow up to 23mm of preload at the front (using the included spacers) while still allowing access to the damping controls. Rear springs are £84 (and they’ll even swap it for you if you post your shock in), while the preload caps are £270.

If you want to get really fancy, or enjoy riding right on the limit, there are full cartridge kits and replacement rear shocks. The ‘Extreme’ closed cartridge kit replaces the entire innards of the fork with the Tractive set up, which is fully adjustable and has much larger piston for more precise and controlled damping. To go with this is a fully-adjustable rear shock, again with improved damping as well as saving weight on the standard unit. The fork kit costs £1199 while the rear shock is £923 and both maintain the standard 200mm of suspension travel. 

There is also a ‘Rally’ option for the same price with an extra 30mm of travel. Amongst the neatest additions are the anodised rims which don’t require you to bin a brand new pair of wheels. To match the style of the original machines from the 70s, Rally Raid are selling gold rimmed wheels but you can trade in your OEM ones. The neat bit is that RR constantly hold a set in stock, so you’ll only be without your wheels for a day or two. They’re also able to fit a tubeless tyre conversion at the same time (although this takes a little longer). A new set of wheels costs £718 while a tubeless conversion is an extra £180.

There are also no less sexy but equally practical items including 20 and 40mm lowering links, stainless steel wheel spacers, a handy multitool for adjusting the chain and removing the wheels, plus a billet alloy multimount that clamps onto the 12mm crossbar.