Best I've had out of mine on German autobahn is 160 mph on speedo, GPS showing a max of 149 mph. No panniers or top box, I just had a bag strapped on the back seat and rack. Wearing leathers definately helps, wearing flappy textile over jacket knocks at least 5-10 mph off the top speed.
Every bike I've ever owned is 10mph short of the maximum, due to me having all the aerodynamic qualities of a garage door:frown: But you gotta try.
I'm also harder to kidnap, so covering me in a cow or two wouldn't improve the stradas top end, which is impressive and far more comfortable than my 998 at the same speed:biggrin:
Had 175mph indicated on my old TL1000 while chasing my brother's 1098S, which was indicating 181mph. The TL had shorter gearing (but was a very fit bike), so was over-reading. The Ducati just plain lied...
Quite disappointing really. But it's still a fookin' fast bike, and bigger numbers make for bigger smiles. My Triumph cried foul halfway round a motorway bend at 146mph in the Czech republic the other month, and went into a weave that I thought was gonna be my last. But his Duke swept past a good 30mph faster like it was on rails, and making the kind of noise that would give a dead man a hard-on. The big numbers just add to the effect.
I seem to recall that the 999 speedo only reads as high as 174mph - after that it just says "---". LOL. Not that I've had mine that high.
My 848 speedo is pretty accurate, to a couple mph at worst, having fitted gps laptimer and checked max speeds. With a 14 t front 165 ish flat max with the whole dash shouting!
O goodie a pissing contest. I got to 187 on this:- I think I could have gone a tad more but bottled it when I found out how hard you had to pull it over to go around the smallest of bends. A few months later I almost lost my left leg doing 50 comming off the M6
O BTW just to try and keep on topic the exup valve on Yamahas used to size and stop them from reaching top speed so sounds very similar to what your describing.
