I was riding on the interstate (I405 near seattle). Theres this big long hill on part of the highway. I was cruizing along in the left lane, 70-75 with traffic and the bike started to loose power and sputter, like it was out of gas. I reached down and flipped over to reserve and started moving over to the right. I got over to the far right lane just about the time the engine went back to normal about 20 sec later. I figured the gas gauge was just wrong, reading 1/3 tank.

So I got to my exit (2 miles ahead) and stopped at the gas station and filled up but only put in 2.2 gallons.

Knowing where the fuel valve is located in a high value skill in this situation, I recommend figuring it out to anyone whos new to riding.

My question is: Is this normal? Up hill can cause fuel starvation?

How many miles did you have on that tank before switching to reserve?

115, give or take a couple.

Well, Im out of gas around 125-150 miles, so it is possible the gauge is wrong, but remember the petcock is vacuum fed, open throttle=no vacuum, so if you were on it hard, long enough (up hill, going fast) it is possible the petcock just shut off-no vacuum, racers with the honda interceptor turn a spring around inside the petcock to disable this feature on that bike because of this.

beavis

Yeah, that's a little low. Based on how much went in when you filled up, did it look like you just got crappy mileage on that tank?

As for the petcokc, Lance Ostiguy just posted a great reply about the petcock over on Yahoo. I'll copy it over here later.