I drove my car on some errands this morning - it was raining again. On the return trip, I was going up an Interstate onramp, looked back, and saw traffic approaching on the Interstate from behind. So I pushed down on the accelerator, the transmission downshifted, and the 200 hp 24 valve V-6 started to sing. It launched the big Ford Taurus up onto the Interstate well ahead of the oncoming traffic. For a brief moment, one side of my brain said "Hey, why don't you see how fast this car will go?". The other side of my brain immediately responded "Because you don't really care".
The first side of my brain said "Oh yeah..." and my foot lifted off of the accelerator.
You see, the Taurus is not a muscle car or a sports car. It is just an excellent general purpose workhorse. It will cruise as fast as I want to go on public highways, and it has enough power to pass or accelerate ahead of traffic when I need to. It never feels underpowered for the mission I bought it to perform. Will it top out at a higher speed than my Burgman 650? It's true - I really don't care.
I can't remember the last time I went for max speed in one of my cars - it might have been the 1969 BMW 2002 - I was kinda wild in that thing. I have not tried to see how fast my 1000cc V-Strom will go - I know it goes faster than I want to ride. In 6 years of ownership I never maxed out my 1000cc Kawasaki Concours, nor the 1100cc Honda Shadow before it. It's probably been more than 20 years since I tried for top speed on a motorcycle, and I'll bet that was my 1985 Honda Elite scooter. Kinda had to ride that thing at top speed just to keep up with highway traffic sometimes.
So why the heck have I done about a dozen top speed attempts on my Burgman 650 this year? Well, for the most part, it was to see what effect different size windscreens and other accessories (Givi Trunk, Remus pipe), and gasoline octane, had on performance. A bit of scientific curiosity. And at times, the results were interesting.
But after that thought process in the Taurus this morning, I had to ask myself. Do I really care if the AN650 tops out at 105 mph or 115 mph the next time I change an accessory, or burn a different grade of gas? And I think the answer is "No". You see, it is kind of like the Taurus. The only thing that matters is that it performs well - within the scope of the mission I bought it for. And it does that with ease.