Overheat?

[molerat]

Hey everyone,

While riding around town with the ambient temperature in the mid to high 80's, the temp guage was very close to red line, if I had continued in town it may have gone into it (not sure), I got on the freeway and headed to the mountains for an afternoon of 2 up knee dragging Very Happy .
Where should the needle be pointing on a hot summer day with everything operating as it should? Also when it gets this hot the motor does not want to idle, it dies at a stop, any ideas on this?

I did some searching but could not find much on overheating. Could it be thermostat? How can I tell if the fan is coming on? With all the outside noise it's impossible to tell.

I changed the coolant about a week ago but it did it prior to that.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[frankenduck]

I wouldn't worry about the temp gauge.  When the bike overheats for real then the idiot light in the instrument cluster will come on.

Fan test:  Start the bike.  Let it idle.  Wait around and listen for the fan to kick in eventually. If the idiot light comes on (shut it down if you see this) before the fan kicks in then there's an issue either with the fan or the circuitry that powers it.

If it's running like crap at idle: http://www.motobrick.com/index.php/topic,1094.0.html

And even if you don't shut it down when the idiot light comes on then the radiator cap will blow before it overheats - just like a car.