This was a bit of an eye opener for me. The Tenere 700 is a tall bike and require the inside leg of a small T-Rex to sit on comfortably with both feet flat on the floor and a small bend of the knee. After installing the Yamaha OEM 18mm lowering links and the OEM low seat the stance/height was perfect for my 31″ inside leg and all was seemingly well.. until I rode it for more than 30 miles that is.. at which point my butt told me to wake up, smell the coffee and quit trying to ride with an oak plank for a seat.. Enter the “Grenadier Butt Guard” I then designed, a variation on the traditional “sheepie”.
That immediately solved my butt rebellion but it increased the seat height by.. 20mm.. so now I’m back to square one! Nothing else to to except bite the bullet and install 40mm lowering links. I really didn’t want to but the bike needed to be safe to ride and that meant having the ability to stomp down with one foot to right any instability. At the same time I calculated the forks needed raising 18mm to compensate and maintain the bike’s overall stock geometry and indeed that did the job perfectly. My attention then turned to the chain tension. I was sure that such a significant drop in height would have a detrimental effect on that and reading through the manual it indicated that a distance of 43mm to 48mm was required for correct tension. That’s the distance from the mid point on the lower section of chain up to the bottom ridge of the chain guard whilst one finger firmly depresses that chain section downwards. There are various DIY ways to measure that distance but for little money a company known as “Motion Pro” sells a product called “SLACKSETTER” which quickly does that job for you whilst not requiring a remortgage of the house.
Mine arrived from a seller on eBay within a couple of days and I followed the instructions and dutifully measured that distance.
To my surprise the distance was 47mm so still within the recommended stock parameters! I really had expected there to be a reasonable amount of adjustment needed but nope, it was fine as is! So there you have it. My bike only has about 1200 miles on it so the chain has yet to have time to stretch much, if any. Should your T700 be older or have a lot more miles on the clock you may get a different reading and require an adjustment but that won’t be caused by dropping 20-40mm alone.