A friend has this bike and it started last week just fine but today it would not start. We hooked it up to the car and had the sarter going at 2-5 sec bursts for a while... nothing.
finally it started making a put put put sound and lil smoke clouds came out of the exhaurst sometimes. For the rest of the time when we had the started going it would go put put put but nooo vrooooom
Rubbish in the carbs, change fuel filter, check plugs and then go to the maintenance section of this forum, there will be other threads with this problem.
I spent my therapy money an a K1200S
The therapy worked, I got a GS now
A touch of insanity crept back in the shape of an R1200R
check the above advise check for water in the fuel also pull out a spark plug see if its wet or dry if its wet spray it with starting fluid and LET IT DRY then after dry hook it into the boot and let touch the engine hanging down DO NOT HOLD IT crank over the engine and see if it sparks between the electrodes on the plug. If its nice and blue your problem is more than likley a cruddy carburater.
You need air, fuel, compression and spark for it to run. Start checking the easiest and cheapest of these first. For example, make sure the air filter isn't clogged up. Make sure the spark plugs spark. Make sure you can't push the bike around in gear (if you could, you have little to no compression and the motor is probably shot).
Sounds like the pilot jet(s) in the carb(s) might be clogged up. That will cause a similar set of symptoms.
[url=http://www.motoblag.com/blag/]Practicing the dark and forgotten art of using turn signals since '98.[/url]