Andy,
Maybe you are right about average riders but maybe that should read "for road use" My bastard child 18 with 21 engine was used as a daily commute until i came ti Indo. Still with the 18 inch rear wheel I dropped the rear sprocket to 40 so was running 15/40. This means it cruises at 140kph at about 8500 if memory serves correctly. I could get my gearing calcs from home if you want.
Of course maybe one has to live in Thailand in Rayong and go to work 20kms each way on a dual-carriage and ride the 60kms each way to Pattaya in the evenings and have either disinterested or non existent police......
Before the faulty TPS was replaced the grunt was much better but that maybe because now the jetting is conservative. Coming out of corner one at Bira and going full chat up the hill into turn two the front used to go "very' light, with a wobble, over the crest to the point where I started looking for a damper. But then it would seize either through Maxima or at the end of the straight ( was that you locked up?) Now it's lost that "crispness but it's eminently reliable. I lost my confidence for a while maybe that's why I went to 15/40? I never used to ride at more that 9000 at partial throttle!
Sorry if this is disjointed but it comes back in bits and bytes as I didn't keep a diary. I remember the siezes by car and location. First two counted as one were on ther same day were on the track, second was "playing" with a 525i coming into Pattaya just past the hwy7/36 junction and the last was "blowing off" a Thai lowrider turbo deisel pickup late at night coming into Rayong after a 220kms round trip from Chantaburi.
That's about all I can think of for now.
mike