Do modern air cooled bikes over heat in a traffic jam

[inreb]

Oh I am so convinced idling in the summer heat is bad for air cooled sport bikes. Probably any bike except 'police package' bikes.

Check what your manual says. I watch my temperature and it can pretty quickly climb into the nasty zone.

Air cooled. Cool air? Get it? I think the bike is supposed to be moving so that the air is actually cooling the bike. Hence the name 'air cooled'.

Just for arguements sake I would say "air cooled sport bikes" arent built to the higher performance levels because they ARE aircooled. R+D in this regard isnt new. The OEM's know how far to push. Granted, idling in gridlock on a hot day isnt "good" for it but you might be surprised how much an engine can tolerate. The aircooled engines also come lean now for emmission reasons, driving up the temps. Richer jetting once out of the showroom will cool things.

[BrianZ]

Synthetic oil does make a difference in operating temperatures. My father switched to Mobil 1 in his HD and the average oil temperature dropped around 10 deg (measured in the oil tank).

[BoGs]

My first bike Suzuki GS500F .... I got stuck in traffic once and it got HOT .... at one point it turned off .... had to pull off the road waited 15 min and then got moving again... it was also mid july/august

[Martin]

I'm not too worried about it but my previous car would over heat constantly, I had the fan, relay switch, coolant, and thermostat checked and no one could ever find the problem.....I have a new car now so that isn't a problem but thinking about the fact that my coolant-cooled vehicle over heated in traffic makes me worried about an air/oil cooled bike.......I guess I have nothing to worry about.
Since there's a blizzard outside and my bike won't be delivered till the summer I might as well post silly questions that might bug some of you

Your car needed a new radiator. Very common.

[Karl]

The rad was fine...Queensway VW tech. said it was a larger electrical issue....you see I thought I was getting a german made machine, what I got was a sack of **** from Mexico!