Doc - first of all let me say that your bike looks great. Secondly, you take real nice pictures. There is nothing prettier than Fall except if you can get your bonnie into the pic and you did just that.
I'm gonna throw my 2 cents in about breaking the Bonneville in. I will assume that you bought yours brand new like I did with approximately 3 miles on her when you picked her up. There are all different schools of thought on how to break your bike in but there is a couple of things we all agree on and that is you change the break in oil after 500 miles and Bonneville's, in general, like to rev high.
I did not want to take my new bike and break her in on the highway at a steady speed. What I did is take US1 from the Dealership to my home which is approximately 40 miles. I ran her down US 1 through all gears at varied rpms right up to 6000 RPMs. I bounced the engine all over the RPM range in different gears doing a lot of stop & go all the way home. I limited myself to 6k as the cutoff until 50 miles was on the engine. Then I took her up to 7k after the first 50 miles. After I reached 500 miles I changed the oil to synthetic and I went to town on her in every gear! She loves to be whipped.
My bike has 2500+ on her now, she pulls perfectly, leaks no oil and has no problems whatsoever. As a present last week I washed her for the first time. I'll probably get scolded but that's how I broke my bike in and it worked for me and her just fine! Don't baby her during break in.
That's all I got for now - let the Flaming begin!
