I went out for a ride today on my bike; the first real ride of the year to test the waters (2009 Gs500F); I bought second hand. Seems that it's running good. Idling nice now when warmed up. I had some issues with 'hanging rpm' yesterday...warmed it up today for a good half hour and adjusted the idle with the knob at bottom of carbs; that fixed the hanging idle issue, though there is the odd backfire when throttling at idle. However, now i've noticed that the bike will not reach redline before I gear up. It's the first time I've tried pushing the bike harder today. It seems to hit 9000 RPM and hover there, and not going anywhere higher (10-11000) with increased throttle before shifting up. Is this normal? Am I missing something here? Did I set the idle adjuster slightly too low?  Thanks kindly! Hope to hear back with your info!

the hesitation off idle could be pilot jets, these bikes are lean from the factory with 17.5 pilots. change them out for 20.0. as for the 9000rpm problem, just what kind of daily driving do you do where you need 9000rpm?  cant help you with this but if you are wringing the snot out of a 40hp bike looking for performance, you might need a different bike.