If the bike has had "normal" maintenance, I would say YES- GO FOR IT ! Ive worked on hundreds of Tenere bikes. Many of them with 50-150K+ miles. Even the ones with 100K miles still ride and sound new. (with normal maintenance and wear parts replaced) Ive had this same conversation with friends that own Super Tenere's. We have kicked this discussion around many times, everyones over whelming thought on "would you buy another Tenere used with 30-50K miles", is a big YES. The bike basically a de-tuned tractor that will go just about forever.
I have a close friend of mine with a Tenere that currently has 108K miles. He rides it (normally before Corona) about 100 miles a day to the office. And weekends he does normal riding around. And then he and I still ride cross country to events or out to do another BDR. His bike has been upside down for many hours from off-road wrecks. Once we got his bike off the side of the mountain in Arizona it fired up and continued down to the Mexican border and then all the way home to Texas. That was several years ago, the bike still sounds and rides like new. I still do normal maintenance on the bike for him, forks, swing arm bearings, steer tube bearings, rear disc & pads, Etc. That is just normal stuff, the bike is ROCK SOLID at 108K. He has every intention to put 200-250K miles on it. Knowing the guy like I do, even if something did happen one day, he would probably just have me put in a part and he will just keep going. One day, his Tenere might be the 'highest miles' Tenere out there ?
Have a shop look it over and if they give it a "green light" I would say don't hesitate at all and have a great time. Don't look at the miles and go try and put another 100K on that sucker ! ! !
For a fun side story: the upside down stories..... And the bikes just keep going !
(Colorado story) The first was climbing Imogene pass in Colorado backwards. This is when your riding up the whole way and then drop down into Telluride. Our group made it all the way to the very last switch back and all but two made it up and over this switch back. My (108K) buddy tried and tried and at the top there is a solid slick rock sloping wall. He fell just at the very top of this rock and the bike fell over. We are at 13000 ft and we all don't live at this altitude. When he fell we all walked over and sat on the side of the trail for about twenty minutes. As we sat there his bike began to slide down this rock face and now is aiming backwards on its side. (very steep hill and the bike is on its side with the tank at the lowest point down hill) As it began to slide down the mountain no one got up to catch it. We were all dead tired and out of breath. Eventually several of us got it back up and aiming down the mountain again. He was done and decided to just go back down the whole way. Once we got the bike upright, the bike fired right up like nothing ever happened and he hopped on and took off down the mountain.
The other guy that was with our group, he also could not make it to the top of Imogene pass, and at that moment informed us that he has never been off road with a motorcycle before and he was getting tired and wanted to just head back down hill as well. He was wearing sneakers and sweat pants.
First time off road up Imogene, this guy was crazy.
(Arizona BDR) My buddy and I road the AZBDR backwards. We started at the Grand Canyon and road south. We made it to Globe (Butler map Red box 5) heading south. We fueled up in Globe headed south up into the mountains and camped (each night). The next morning we are heading south on the BDR off road in some crazy SH&& fully loaded. I feel pretty good about all the off road, my (108K) buddy, not so much. We are out in the middle of no where and he has a slip up going up the mountain on a jeep road. He made a mistake and basically crashed his bike off the side of this mountain. I have pictures, maybe I can post them. I was about ten seconds behind him and all I see is him crawling up the side of this mountain like you might see in a cartoon or some movie, NO JOKE! His bike is 95% off the side of the mountain and upside down. We QUICKLY come to understand that we are not going to be able to pull a 800-900Lbs bike back up off the cliff, but nice try. He ended up flipping over the bars and lading about twenty feet down the mountain and landing in a tree. This is no BS hill, we are out in the boon docks and real AZ mountains. Not a good situation.
Just so this doesn't turn into about five more paragraphs, with the help of a SPOT and several people around the US, we were able to get an off road rescue guy to come get his bike. It took him about 13 hours to find us. He ended up finding us at 10PM. We had already set up camp and eating dinner on the jeep trail when he shows up with this huge 4x4. (he complemented us both on having water, food, shelter and all the right equipment. He went on to tell us that most of his customers he rescues are out in the desert all day with a cooler full of beer and a T-shirt with flip-flops. He said they have no water or food and are about to pass out) He had two 15K pound winches on the back and a 30K on the front. When he hooked up to his bike it started to pull the truck off the side toward his bike. The old guy had a re-think and pulled out the other winch and hooked it all up another way. That worked and he winched the Tenere off the side of the mountain, literally.
He had this dolly and he towed it back to Globe to get a hotel and see what major damage was done to the bike. I took off my bags and all the weight off my bike and loaded it up on the rescue truck. I then had a BLAST riding my stripped Tenere about 50 miles off road back to Globe. It was like riding Baja 1000 at midnight on the side of mountains.
I LOVED THAT PART. By this time it was about 1am or so, this all started at about 9 am. (one more funny part, the guy TOTALLY hooked up my buddy on the price and after we got the payment squared away the guy was trying to make sure we didnt need any more dinner or a beer? He was trying hard to suggest food at 1:30am and a place to grab some beers. You would have to had to been there, but they guy was SUPER cool and a really great guy. I still have his card, I should post that guys info... Save your life one day)
The next morning im looking over the bike and I have all types of thoughts running through my head on what crazy damage is done to the bike. After 30-45 minutes of looking over and checking things we both agree its time to "try and start it".... We hit the button and it then did the biggest back fire I've ever heard in my life. My ears are ringing and we are both like, WOW !........ We crank it again, and Kaaa-POW ! another back fire just as loud... HOLY SH&& that was loud.... The third time we hit the starter it fired right up and ran like a champ ! NO PROBLEMS AT ALL. The funny thing is we had a motel manager and other guest coming up to us and looking out there doors. They all thought we had been shooting guns in the parking lot. The manager was super pissed off we had been shooting guns. We had to explain the "bike story".. It was funny if you were standing there. Later that morning we loaded all up and headed to Tomb Stone and on to Mexico border. Then we headed home back to Texas.
After 13-14 hours up side down and beaten to death, the girl still fired up and its the same bike he still rides everyday. I will also say that he has my skid plate on his bike. There was quite a bit of damage to the 1/4" aluminum when the bike flipped off the mountain. It smashed the whole weight of the bike on the front left corner of the engine when it went down the hill. With out that "engine protection", not only would be never have ridden home and had more fun, that would have cost him the whole entire engine. It would have taken out the whole front case, and cylinder #1.
Bike runs like a top, even after all of this... these are only two of many more stories.... If you find one that has been taken care of pretty well you probably have NOTHING to worry about, grab it and go have yourself and ADVENTURE !
Thats what its all about !!!
