The Red Line

[Jackdaw]

Reading the thread about running in and the comments regarding how hard to rev the engine made me realise that my tacho has never been much over 7 thou. In 3rd gear this produces enough speed to overtake very quickly. In 5th (top- mine's a 99er) at these revs you'd lose your licence if caught on camera. I guess I ride rather conservatively.
When do other riders get close to the red line?

[StumpyFingers]

On my TA I have got close to the RED line on a couple of occasions, each time was by gunning the engine slightly more in the lower gear.
Instead of changing gear as normal I revved the engine to the red line before going up two gears.

[Austin]

When do other riders get close to the red line?

1st, 2nd, 3rd gear ocassionally when I am "going for it". 4th Very ocassionally but that I think would in excess of 100 on my vara. I don't think it would pull to the redline in 5th or 6th unless on a long long downhill straight.

[africajim]

Not really thought about it, trying to stretch a wheelie a bit further than I should perhaps?
A few times eking the last bit of power out of the beast chasing sports bikes?
In honesty, it starts to lose power around 8000rpm, you can feel it's not pulling as hard as lower revs.
I suppose end of the day, must confess to loving the tone off the aftermarket pipes as it hits the rev limiter!
I ride it like I stole it most of the time, God I miss my Vara, roll on springtime, no more Kawasaki!,,,, Well,,,,,, until next winter maybe!

[davsato]

you wont get much more out of a v-twin at max revs than you would at 3/4 throttle, its the way they make power/torque, better to ride the torque curve around the midrange. if you did max it out the rev limiter on my varadero (va6) comes in like hitting a brick wall, another atribute of a v-twin, engine braking.
a four cylinder(or more) works in a slightly different way, piston area and stroke are smaller and internals are lighter making it able to wang back and forth faster for higher revs and bhp.
thats why i prefer my varadero to either of the sportsbikes ive had, instant urge without mucking around with gears, while the fours took a couple of seconds to spin up before i would try an overtake. saying that, there are exceptions if any of you have ever had a go on a CB1300? fantastic. and the latest bandit 1250, if you can ignore suzuki build quality

[jarl]

I hit 9K on my alp the other day by accident whilst pulling a slightly dodgy overtake in second (redlines at 8.3), never hit the rev limitter. Other than that I'll let her run to 6 or 7K every now and then to keep her happy. She loses most her power about 6K, seems to pull best between 4 and 5, so revving the nuts off the bike is only good when you don't really have time to change gear.

Big twins are very fun bikes- I like torque, lots

[Austin]

I don't the TA has a rev limiter. Not that I have ever found anyway. 9k is probably about the most I have revved it to in similar circumstances to jarl.