terrific, well-thought out explanation once again i'll say it doesn't matter if you go over the rpm limit for short periods of time almost every engine expert i know of for both cars and bikes says that a few trips up to redline (for under 5 - 7 seconds) is GOOD for an engine during break-in and what the bmw engineers mean is that we shouldn't constantly go up there but ocassionally doing so.... hurts NOTHING