Got this off of the
Triumph Renegade listELECTRICAL:
Always start in neutral with the clutch pulled in. That reduces the mechanical load on the starter and the electrical load on the battery which leaves you more power for starting.
When you're starting a cold bike that's been sitting for a while, work the clutch a few times before you crank the engine. That makes sure the disks and plates in the clutch aren't sticking together and are free to move.
Only crank 5-10 seconds at a time and then let the bike sit with the ignition off for twice the cranking time. That lets the charge in the battery recover a bit and helps keep the starting voltage/current high.
FUEL:
Gasoline is a mixture of about 150 chemicals, each having a different volatility. The trend recently has been to add 'oxygenators' that are of relatively low volatility and produce less energy than the hydrocarbons they replace. It appears that to compensate for the low volatility of the 'environmental' additives the oil companies are adding more high-volitility compounds to the fuel.
That means that the volitility enhancers make up a larger portion of the fuel and evaporate faster, so if you're going to be off the bike for a week or two, fill the gas tank to minimize evaporation (less surface area = slower evaporation of volatiles), turn off the fuel and run the bike until the carbs go dry.
Ethyl alcohol has become a popular oxygenator because it's touted as 'environmentally sustainable'. That's a fraud, but it buys votes from farmers and makes politicians happy. The problem with adding alcohol is that it absorbs water from the atmosphere and cools the cylinders -- exactly the opposite of the conditions required for easy starting.
CARBS:
Dry carbs don't work right.
If you've drained the carbs and they've had time to completely dry out then it's going to take some extra cranking before the fuel mixture is right. During normal operation the main and pilot jets both produce a fuel 'emulsion' that's actually a fuel-air foam. If the carb passages are dry the foam will break down before it hits the airstream and give you a very erratic starting mixture. Until the passages are wet and the poor mixture blows through, starting will be difficult.
The CV carbs use an enricher instead of a choke and the enricher behaves the same way as the other carb passages when it's dry -- the emulsion breaks down and the mixture becomes erratic.
The dry passages condition doesn't last long, but it's enough to wet your plugs so they won't fire properly
With directly controlled carbs you can open the throttle and crank the engine to 'blow dry' the spark plugs but the CV-type carbs won't let you do that very efficiently since they automatically adjust to throttle settings. Very often letting the bike sit for 15 minutes or so after the initial cranking will let the plugs dry enough to fire.
