Spied! Yamaha T7 adventure bike

The enterprising Brits at Motorcycle News have got their hands on a set of spy shots showing the Yamaha T7 adventure bike undergoing testing.

Not much is known about the T7, except for what we saw at EICMA last year. Some Italian journos claim to have gotten their hands on one, and aside from that, there hasn’t been much buzz; the Japanese factories tend to keep secrets much better than their Euro counterparts.

And true to trend, these spy shots show us pretty much … nothing. There’s a cloth draped over the bodywork, so Yamaha’s not giving much away here. It does hint that development is probably still underway, so hopefully we’ll see this machine hit the show circuit this fall.

If it does appear, this machine is probably going to be the front-runner of a new wave of middleweight adventure bikes powered by parallel twins. BMW has had the F800 series for years, but nobody else has done much with vertical twin ADV machines in the 600-800 class. But now that thumpers are on the way out, expect that to change.

Find more photos of the T7 prototype at Motorcycle News.