Maritime
Over 10,000 Posts
+1 to HD. I rode the GL today and had full choke for 2-3 minutes, then it gives you a little hiccup and you know to dial it back a bit to half, another 2-3 minutes and the temp guage starts to work and I shut it off. The CM450 I had was the same, full choke to start till idle jumped, then you could cut it to half and start riding and after 1-2 mins shut off choke after warm enough, cold days took longer. If tuning and you can't ride you need to idle with choke on to get the bike to full operating tempurature, then adjust idle, check floats etc. These old honda's are all typically cold blooded and unless its 90+ deg out, need choke when cold i.e. sat overnight or 12+ hours. When I leave at 5 today I will be able to just fire the GL with some throttle and leave choke off because it is 75 and the bike will still be warm from the lunch ride. Hope that helps a bit. You can't expect to fire with the choke and shut it right off after, minimum you'll have to leave it half on until bike is warm, reason is, if you set everything for the bike to run and idle right cold without choke it will be way rich when it gets warm.