General topics » 5000rpm'ish consequences

Riding for longer periods at around 5000rpm in the 140-150kmh range on gighways,

how well our 1200 LC boxer motor can cope with this?

Except for higher fuel consumption....

No problem at all. You can ride at those engine speeds until the cows come home and it will have no effect on your engine or its life. The only impact will be fuel mileage, as you say.

Bike will easily sit at an indicated 100mph (or higher) all day long......or until you run out of fuel - no adverse effects on the engine (or oil consumption, unlike the old oil heads).

100mph seems to be exactly in the sweet spot - minimal vibration, good wind protection and plenty of top gear roll-on grunt available at a flick of the wrist.

Over here, in Victoria, Australia (the State of Excitement) you just cannot ride at those speeds. For the size of the state we have few roads. Those are divided between Commonwealth funded (or partly so), State funded and local council roads.
The local council roads are probably not crawling with Police - but the roads are not really high speed roads - generally they are farm roads.
Once you get on the major roads, there are fixed speed cameras, point to point elapsed time speed cameras and marked and unmarked patrol cars.
If you exceed the speed limit by 25 kph or more it is loss of licence and probably impounding of your bike for 30 days. You do it more than once and I think the vehicle gets "crushed".
When I got my licence in 1968 over here, there was no speed limit out of towns and cities. It was a 60 mph (pre-metric) "prima facie" limit. That meant that you would not be booked at 60 mph or below; but if you exceeded 60 mph you could do so if the conditions were "safe", meaning good weather, good visibility, light traffic etc.
Commonly at that time the "boys" would take the "Geelong Road" and run it at "the ton". You may have got a fine, you may have got nothing.
No so in this Brave New World.
Politically, a lot of Aussies laugh at the USA and look at the lack of gun control (another clear change from here) and don't see our over-regulated "Nanny State" as actually destroying their personal liberties. They accept restrictions on everything, from smoking to compulsory seat belts and random breath tests for "the greater good".
Maybe the Aussies are right, maybe not -- but one thing is clear, you just can't speed over here (other than momentarily) without nasty consequences.

California is a nanny state, too. But what I never figured out was when someone has their license revoked due to 10 or 15 DUI's, or killing a child crossing the street (not as bad as running over someone's dog), they continue to drive anyway - just without registering their vehicle and obtaining insurance. And news reports indicate that many of these drivers get away with it, over and over again. You can tell when someone gets into a crash and is drunk, or doesn't have a license, or is not here legally, they just leave their vehicle on the road (with its stolen license plate) and run off into the bushes, then head for home and the other car parked in their backyard. Nanny states are great. They have lots of laws against just about everything, but just can't afford the resources to enforce all of those laws. So what does that get them, other than good press in the news media and a warm feeling when the law gets passed?

pity the sweet spot is at 100mph, reinforces the german (pre curfew)autobahn design ethic