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I don't know what bike you have,but assuming it's a Hawk, then I will tell you my experience, and opinion. I weigh 250, live in the Mid Ohio Valley of West Virginia, which is not mountainous, but has it's share of hills. I have no need for my bike to run much faster than 55mph + a little more to basically go with the flow of the other vehicles. I already had an extra 46 rear, so I tried it with a 17 front, and it was geared a little higher than what I need, but it was livable. It did require me to down shift on hills that I knew that with just a little more power I would top in high, because on a 4th gear down shift, it would often wind itself back out, and be running nearly as fast as I would normally want to run, but at a higher rpm, and sometimes with a lot of hill left. If I was a lighter rider, and under 200 pounds, I think I would like something a step higher than a 17/46, like a 17/44, because when it did run out of steam in 5th, then 4th gear would often build the speed back up to normal, without winding the motor out past it's optimal power curve. I am now running the same 46, but with a 16 front, and it pleases me fine. The bike is not sluggish ( for an internally stock CG), and gets to 55+ pretty quickly, and is not under undue stress running that at a steady speed. I often run it in the low 60s out on the main roads when the rest of the traffic is flowing at that, but it's usually just for a couple miles. I honestly think that if a person was under 200 lbs, and didn't live in mountainous terrain, then you could gear it according to how much low speed power you need, because once you go high enough in gearing, you are going to be having a 4th that's as high as 5th was with lower gears. As long as you have enough grunt in 1st to EASILY take off from any situation, and to handle any low speed "off road" situation, and enough 5th to unstressfully handle your foreseeable substained top speed then your good.
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