Hi everyone,

I bought a '91 GS a couple months ago, and it's been running fine up until a few days ago when I tried riding to practice and the bike seemed to have a major loss of power when I was riding up the small incline by my house. The bike then stalled when I was sitting at the stop sign at the top of the hill. Restarted, stalled again, so I just walked it back to my house. I've tried running it a few times since then, with the petcock in "reserve" and "prime", neither of which makes a difference. I put it on a battery tender and that didn't make a difference either(I thought maybe it was electrical).

The bike basically stalls as soon as you let the clutch out and give it gas, unless you want to rev it up really high, where it will slowly putter along with barely any power. I thought maybe cleaning the petcock will fix it, but I am new to motorcycling as a whole (this is my first vehicle) so I wanted to ask what you guys think before I try anything.

Extra info: Last time I checked the oil (about a month ago), it looked clean, and my bike burns oil. Additionally, it does not seem to rev up at all when I use choke anymore. It will not stall when you give it gas in neutral or with the clutch pulled in. The bike has 24k miles on it and is not in great shape but the previous owner said it never stalled on him.

Any thoughts?

Sorry dude, not a clue. When you give it gas in neutral/with the clutch pulled in, ie. without the drive gears engaged, do the revs climb?

My guess is that it's starving for fuel, I would have a look at the carbs and see if a good cleaning might resolve your issue. How much oil is your bike burning between checking/ oil changes.

Running on one cylinder.

Check for compression  (I think Autozone has a tool you can rent), check for spark (don't zap yourself), and check to see each plug is wet with gas.

My guess? Most likely a dirty carb.

Thanks guys. I'll see about cleaning the carbs next weekend, hopefully I have time for that because since I've never done it before it'll probably take me a while. It does rev normally when it's in neutral. As for oil, I'll see if there's much of a difference from last time but I doubt it.