Why hello there! (Acton, MA)

So I rode into work this morning. That sucked. It took me 15 long minutes of peddling to get the engine to sputter alive (I didn't leave the clutch in the whole time, I'd peddle up to speed first, try it, then peddle again) then another 3 or 4 minutes to get it to run smoothly. It was in the upper 50s F this morning. Any advice on getting it started immediately?

I forgot to shutoff the fuel line last night so one possibility is the engine was flooded and i needed to evaporate the excess gas.

Is there a special setting I need for morning cold starts when the air is more oxygen rich?

The only settings I tried changing were the idle screw and the fuel line. I need to start adjusting the choke, but that damn lever is so hard to find when i'm concentrating on not face planting

hot damn, how many chopper bikes do u have?? definitely motorize at least one of them

Yea I'm going to check the carb. I snapped off a piece of the carb connection from fastening it too much. I slipped a copper sleeve meant for plumbing and refastened the carb to the engine and it has been running, but there probably still is a slight air leak which would contribute to a poor start. I really do like the sound of the pull start. I saw them online but wasn't too convinced at the time, but after peddling for 15 mins to get it started I'm pretty convinced . I'll also check the spark plug for any accumulation of crap. Thankfully I work at an engineering test facility so the technicians have all the tools I will need.

I'll let you know what I find.

Thanks for the feedback/suggestions.

Funny thing, when I was peddling I stopped to walk the bike up a hill and this other dude passed on the opposite side of the road on his motorized mountain bike. He did a double take 'cause I imagine he was pretty surprised to see another motorized bike in town. If only he didn't have to get to high school in time he may have stopped to help.