Evil,
Stock to stock a bonnie will smoke a Vulcan 800. In the motorcycle kingdom however, a bonnie is middle of pack in speed....lots of faster and lots of slower bikes.
As mentioned, open your airbox and add pipes and tune it to make it faster. 1 grand gets you more compression and cam timing...what these bikes need to go faster.
The leading dem on these bikes are older guys that have owned faster bikes including sport bikes. We get it that speed isn't the be all. If you are a young gun that likes to race and by the way I enjoy using all the bonnie's power but don't yearn for a lot more...than buy a Speed 3 or similar...can pick up a nice one for $6-7K. Those bikes aren't as comfortable to me as a bonnie with more cramped riding position and of course don't have the old school charm...but they are very cool and most important to some are very fast.
Lastly, a comment about speed and youth. I keep my bike in town in storage because I live on a dirt road. I should probably just own a Scrambler instead but I like the T100.
There are three twenty year olds that hang out when done riding where I keep my bike and we have become friends and talk motorcycles. They dig my bonnie and I have sat on their bikes etc. Their riding positions are very aggressive...two 600 and one 1 liter sport bike. They can smoke me easily and we talk about it. All of them have said they have hit 165 mph on their bikes. I told them that my bike may hit 115 with a strong tailwind.
There is no comparison in speed. I don't want to go any faster...or maybe much faster...I may warm up the motor on my bike at some point but more as a fun project and not a high priority. It wouldn't change how fast I ride out on the street as I ride too fast now IMHO. I actually am concerned about these kids who I believe ride much too fast on the public roads. We would probably ride together more but honestly they ride too fast for me...hit 100-120 routinely on public roads and try to outride one another constantly. In my experience that story generally doesn't end well. They are great kids and I was just like them once and probably more luck than skill that I have gotten to the age I have.
Ride safe.
PS: by contrast Harley riders ride too slow for me. I routinely pass them.
