Choke Thingie

[i fly cl600-2d24]

Hey! Great looking site. I'm sure I'm going to burn many an hour here in the next few weeks perusing the forums.

Well, after not getting on a bike for almost 15 years (I'm 33 years old) I went out and bought a bike Saturday. My previous bike was a 1971 (I think) Honda CB750 that I bought from a neighbor for $50 when I was 17 years old. I got rid of it a couple of years later when I went on a mission for the LDS church. I've been wanting a bike for a few years, my neighbor across the street has a S83 Boulevard, and my next door neighbor (a BMW motorcycle mechanic) has some BMW 1200 something-or-another. I picked up a pretty cherry 1995 Yamaha Virago 1100 at a local dealership. 6700 miles and very clean. $3500. I am so freaking excited! My wife is on a cruise with some girlfriends, so she's going to be surprised when she gets home!! (not really, we've been talking about it for a long time). But anyway, I've got a totally noob question. Please, nobody laugh.

What the heck is the choke thingie for? I can turn the choke on or off, but why? I should mention that I live in Arizona, and it was in the 70 degrees today. The bike starts up fine without using the choke. Should I be using it anyway? The bike didn't come with any manuals, but I've got two different repair/maintenance manuals coming that I ordered from Amazon.

Sorry for the long post. I'm just stoked about having a bike again!

[TechTMW]

A choke basically adds more fuel to the cylinders to facilitate cold startup. Since you live in a warm climate and the bike starts fine without the choke, you might not need it. (It's also possible a previous owner rejetted the carburettors to use more fuel than stock)

If you start the bike and ride it for a minute and the bike wants to stall out, it's because you need to use the choke. If you are having no problems with riding during the period of about 10 minutes after startup, (Like stalling or sputtering) you probably don't need the choke at all.

Anyway, welcome to the online community, and welcome back to biking in general

[i fly cl600-2d24]

Cool. Thanks for that information. That's kind of what I figured, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't hurting anything by not using the choke.