All adventure bikes are versatile, but the T7 is a beautifully cut gem of a thing. That's why you see it in every mixed bike group - it's just not out of place in any situation. We find ourselves riding it through every conceivable riding scenario and kind of always happy that we are on it rather than anything else.

No, a Pol Tarres it will not make you my friend. Mostly because Pol Tarres isn't even human and we'd bet good money he can do what he's doing with your mom's VW Golf somehow. However... the T7 is weirdly tractable, forgiving of clumsy throttle/clutch work and beautifully balanced. Is it a dirtbike in disguise - nope. Will it pull you up an extreme Hillclimb on road tires and have you standing at the top thinking "how the f*** did I just do that?". Yup. Off-roadiness isn't a word, we know, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it was...

Or rather it's the sensation of it. That CP2 thing that powers the T7 is one of the best engines we've ever ridden. It... it almost secretes torque just standing there doing nothing. Really there's no good reason to have any more power than this. And the CP2 is annoying in that regard because it feels more powerful than whatever it is you're comparing it to. You ride it next to more powerful bikes and you still feel like you have the upper hand. You lose drag races on it and your brain falls into cognitive dissonance - it knows objectively a T7 is slower than a tuned Ninja 1000 but it's still shocked that the Ninja is faster

Don't get us wrong, we like by-wire stuff, we're not white-beardy old schoolers who believe replacing steam with petrol is where engineering started going wrong. However, we did start on KLRs and DRZs and we absolutely feel the charm of a cable throttle and by-wrist-feel traction control. It's not just that, it's the whole bike, really. There's hardly a button you need other than the starter one and sometimes that's just beautiful. And when we get things right, it feels like we finally, finally grew that first hair down there