Mechanical engineer here. Long engineering career - too many degrees.
I'm going to pipe in here - because of the misinformation that is flying around. Will I ruffle some feathers - yes, I am afraid so.
I looked at the Motoman thing and lost credibility in him quickly with his bogus claims concerning piston rings. He claims the high pressure air "goes over the ring and behind it". Very poor description - indicative of a very poor understanding of design and physics principles.
I didn't bother to finish the read - or "listen" if there was video. He is not knowledgeable.
The engine designers provided their break-in recommendations based on their design work and vast experience with engines. It is not hocus-pocus that they are providing.
But there are some out there that do provide hocus-pocus.
I doubt Motoman has any credentials for making the claims that he does. If he were technically educated he would not sound like he is not.
Motoman's claims seem to be all wrapped up in the piston rings. (At least that is all the farther I was able to read without rejecting his claims - not wanting to waste my time). There is an enormous amount of metal to metal contact that is going on in a new engine - not just piston rings. Valves, valve guides, cams, camshaft bearings, timing gear, wrist pins, connecting rod bearings, crankshaft main bearings, oil pump bearings and seals, cam followers, cam bearings, and on and on - not just rings.
The guy is like a clown.
All these mating devices, materials, surfaces have high spots on them, when new and first assembled, that must be smoothed off during the run-in period (break-in). And the smoothing off of high spots creates metal debris - circulating in the oil - which must be removed. The sooner the stuff is removed - the better - the less damage it can do, as it is circulated through the engine as a very fine grit.
Yes - the filter takes it out - to an extent. The filter does not get the very finest particles - that is why an early oil change is very important. And filter change is important too - because the filter will get "used up" - it's surfaces clogged with debris. Changing to a very fine filtration filter early is very important. The sooner you get debris out of the engine the better. And the first filter change could actually be followed by another after not too long a period. It would do nothing but improve the situation.
Can you ignore this stuff and do other stuff. Sure. And you will not know what the effect is for many many miles. So there is no way for a customer type person to know what the effect is on their engine - of the technique that they are using.
But the manufacturer's engineers know. They are highly educated in every aspect of these engines. Why would you want to ignore these engineers - in favor of some dummy who just makes up stuff??
Only paying attention to the people who have the real knowledge and understanding is useful. And that is the engineers who design and test these engines. Their mechanical knowledge coupled with their decades of testing experience is the only real useful knowledge.
Not some guy's made-up technique.
It was amusing - Motoman's webpage had a statement on it - something like "knowledge is power". I thought that was backwards in his case. It is obvious that he is uneducated in these matters.
As for the one poster here who claimed that he knows "dyno breakin" is the way to go - or something like that. Because he has seen it hundreds of times. What BS. It's embarrassing how little he understands. He may have seen machines on dynos - but he has no way of knowing how those same machines would have behaved or lived if they had been "broken-in" in a different manner. To sit and watch a machine run - tells you nothing about what could have been - or what will become - as that machine goes out into the world and tries to make it to 100,000 miles or so.
There is a lot of misinformation, made-up stuff, passed down made-up stuff, and emotionalism when it comes to this stuff. But that is not what counts. What counts is the physics, dynamics,metallurgy, chemistry, machining, etc ... the engineering that is involved in these machines or any machine.
This stuff is not just dreamed up - but many uneducated people do dream up stuff - and convince others that it is real. They try to pass themselves off as "experts". My suggestion is go to school and work on studying this stuff in detail - it will take some college degrees, though - if yoiu really want to understand what is going on. Don't just make it up.
Engines require careful running while their parts are being meshed for the first times. Heat and debris is created when high spots collide. The oil system circulates this debris - which in turn causes scrapings and collisions with other parts - causing damage. The filter doesn't get it all - and can't get it before it it circulates completely through the engine - to get to the filter.
This is complex stuff. I cannot do justice to the subject in a short little motorcycle forum write-up. I cannot even use the proper language to describe this stuff because most would not understand it. So I have used "sorta - talk around talk". And I criticize myself for sloppy incomplete descriptions. There is a lot more here.
But the designers cannot explain all this stuff to people - their customers. It would take a LOT of discussion - which most could not understand. So they boil it down to "recommendations". What else can they do. They have told you - what you should do. If you chose to ignore them - they can't control that. It is your machine now.
Myself - I hate seeing what a lot of people do to their machines. I hate to see engines abused. I always have.
Try to believe the designers - the engineers. They know. Don't make up stuff.
) a Honda (former 500GP) engineer told me that the sportbike engines these days are one of the best cost/performance expressions of mechanical precision on the road today, very clean, rotated and flushed on assembly and that they still advise the soft break in to minimize amateur mistakes that may cause premature damage such as gearbox damage and to allow ALL riders a fair learning curve to avoid the superbike scare that brought on the 100hp limit we 'unofficially' have had here in Japan since the early super-bike days.