It's pretty common practice to change the gearing slightly on these. Slightly means reducing the rear sprocket size by one or two teeth. Personally, with an 18" rear wheel, I like to drop the sprocket size one tooth from the stock 34 to a 33. This is the gearing Yamaha put on the European models and I think the engine's power output is very well matched to it. This will knock a few hundred RPMs off the engine's speed at cruising speeds but won't kill all the "take off" power in the lower gears. You have to realize we're only dealing with about a 50 HP motor here. Gear it too high and it's not going to pull to redline in the higher gears.