1993 xlh very cold blooded, even after riding.

have you tried changing the gas filter...sometimes it takes a bit of time for dirt to clog it and it clears a little when the bike sits for a bit so that it starts after sitting then dies after running for a few minutes. hope this helps

just a common thing in cold weather, sometimes you have to ride about 5 miles with choke half out, till the engine warms up. try draining your carbys or cleaning them out, sounds like ti could be running abit lean and not getting enough fuel

the new fuels that we buy today only last around 6-8 weeks before they start to turn back to sugar. take the carbs off and clean and replace all of the jets. When u leave it next time use a stabliser in the gas

Sounds like the battery may be weak, recharge and test, maybe replace. As far as starting, most Hondas will not start if you open the throttle any at all. Shadows being liquid cooled are generally cold natured, but you should be able to ride away with the choke on in 1 or 2 minutes, you might have to ride as far as 4 or 5 miles at highway speed before you can take the choke fully off. If it is taking longer than these times, you will need to remove and clean the carbs. the low speed jets may be partially blocked up.

Could be an issue with a spring on the carb.

I also own a 1980 GS550L that had a similar problem, first thing I did to fix it is to add a can of seafoam to a half of tank of gas or less. The bike can run on pure seafoam if needed. Let it run for 3-5 minutes and shut if off. Let it sit for another 5 minutes then start the bike and take it for a ride. After 20 or 30 miles go ahead and fill the tank up with gas. Within a tank or so you should start noticing it idleing better and more power. On the GS550 the choke self adjusts as you use the throttle. There is no need to push it in the rest of the way. Even if you are extremely hard on the bike opening the throttle all of the way it will never go all the way in unless you push it all of the way in. I own two GS's and niether of which prefer to idle if I push the choke all of the way in. Once I did this and learned just to leave the choke alone and let it stay where it self adjusted as I rode the bike it has never stalled since at a light. You should be able to pick up a can of seafoam at any local autozone or advanced autoparts. Most likely your idle circuit on the carb is currently gummed up and the choke circuit is all that is that is working. Myself and freinds have used Seafoam to solve this problem and just about anything with a motor that was parked with gas in for an extended amount of time without any stabilizer added. It's well worth the $8 versus pulling the carbs apart.

well...is it a manual or automatic?

I just replaced my fuel pump and it solved a similar problem.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your bike. I'm assuming that all the required services have been done and you have a good battery. The **9 bikes absolutely require a good strong battery. If you don't already have one get and use a battery tender. It will save you a lot of headaches with a weak battery. As for the starter speed, the 749 turns over S-L-O-W-L-Y. It's normal, if you're use to other makes it sounds like it won't start but it will. The Fast Idle lever, not a choke, once you start the bike, let it idle about 2000 RPM or so until the coolant temp gage stops flashing, then you can slowly back the lever to minimum, if you if you just push the lever back fast it drops the idle too fast and it will die. When it's not fully warm and you have a stock injection map it runs a little lean and will be cold blooded until fully warm. The occasional stall on a cold morning is not unusual even on a properly set up bike. I normally on cool mornings keep my fast Idle lever up until I'm either on a highway/freeway or a five or so miles in town before I turn it full off. She can be a real bitch to start if she's only a little warm, not cold/not hot, I really don't know why but mine does the same thing. I give it a minute and try again and she'll fire. All this goes away once she's fully warmed up. Once you get the knack of it you'll be fine, I don't even really have to think about it anymore.

no doubt this bike is running very lean at idle. Thats the way the EPA wants it. Im a harley mechanic and i used to work in a US dealer. all carb bikes at set up time had the carbs "readjusted". We drilled out the EPA plug and turned the idle air screw out and drilled out the pilot jet too. The bikes worked much better. we were at sea level too so the bikes were very lean from the factory. I can imagine that after the new legislation that came into force they are even leaner and require a full warm up to run properly. Warmed up means you put your hand on the motors head and its hot enought to have to jerk it away. this could take more than a couple minutes. and yes our "readjustment" was illegal. i advice you to do the same.