There was 2 or 3 kids (guys, 13-ish) on the side of the road one day motioning for me to pull a wheelie as I passed them.   Yeah, if they only knew.   

you're

Motorcycles are just cool, any way you figure it.  They're fast, they're dangerous, they sound cool (even a 25hp 250 with an exhaust sounds super powerful), they usually look cool (lots of chrome and sharp angles), motorcycle gear -- especially jackets and helmets -- look awesome, 2up riding with a girl is probably the MOST intimate form of transportation, and more than one badass has been known to ride one.

Even though it's a GS, we're still in the club.

guess your the spelling nazi?

Depending on what your going to do with it it seems as if you just cant beat a GS 500 for a simple, practical all around great machine. I think it's very underrated in this world of mucho CC's! I have a 2006 F model. Had a KLR 650 and it's a great bike if you are going to do both road and off-road, but if your going to stay on the street I would hang with the GS. It handles great and gets killer mileage. It's relatively light as well. I call it my Minnie sport touring machine From what Iv'e read the Ninja 500 is great as well but I like the looks of the GS F model and it's fast enough for me. Good luck

I know this thread is old, but it seems pertinent to how my bike is behaving now that I have it back together and would like to take off on where this dialog left off to diagnose the issue with the bike.

Originally, the bike would stall immediately every time the clutch was pulled in coming to a stop. Idling and starting seemed difficult; in general it was difficult to keep the bike running without revving the engine. After checking the valves, found both the exhaust valves were too tight. Went down 3 shims on LHS exhaust valve and 2 shim sizes on RHS exhaust valve. Helped immensely.

Bike seems to idle very well at 1200-1300 now. Starts easy. Runs nice, and does not stall immediately anymore with the clutch pulled in. However, it will still occasionally come to a gradual stall--not immediate like before. It's almost like the bike wants to keep running, and it slowly cuts out. When I turn the petcock to prime, it does not seem to have this issue. Nothing unusual when accelerating and shifting. I checked beforehand when doing the valves to make sure that all the jets were clean.

Questions:

Is this a bad/clogged petcock? Do I need to buy a new petcock, or can I just blow it out with compressed air? Is the tank vent tube the one in the middle on the underside?

yeah, there are always better looking women than the one ur with, but at least u can stand the one ur with and they let u have sex with them haha.

I put full synthetic in an early eighties Z250c (single) a week later cam chain rattled like a Buddha Loves You,very easy to change on one of those though.I personally wouldn`t recomend it in an old bike.Coincidently my GS5 has just passed 50000miles still goin strong and pulling sidecar.(i use Rock semi in mine)

Same thing with mind anaconda!

i had to bring mine to the shop so they could take a good look at it.  Mine was obviously bent from low side too and I asked them to see if it's salvageable for it to be straightened out by a machine shop. good luck with yours twism86