Air filter frozen?
 

Bike is stored outside and under a cover. I use my remote start every couple days to keep the oil from settling in the pan during the winter months. Last couple days, she's died out while warming up so I figured the cover was blocking too much air and she couldn't breathe. Today is a semi-nice day (if there wasn't ****ing ice in the driveway, I'd be out riding) so I went to investigate a bit.

I took the cover off and started her up. Bike was running rich as chit and smoking out of the exhaust (not steam / condensation). Let it warm up normally and when she hit about 80 degrees (first temp read on the gauge), idle sank from 2k rpm to barely 900 and sputtering. And the air coming from the exhaust was ice cold. Blipping the throttle kept her alive but barely. Eventually as she got up to around 160 degrees the idle picked back up, settling at about 1.3k (normal). The air from the exhaust also warmed up and stopped smoking, changing to normal condensation.

Covers aren't waterproof. Condensation will get trapped under it. I'm figuring water condensed in the air filter and froze there (average temps here have been below freezing lately, despite daytime highs above freezing). Here's the question: could a frozen air filter cause this? All the symptoms point to restricted air flow (running rich, dying).

actually if stored starting er up isnt all that good as it built condensation up in the case n it settles on all the steel parts n can start rusting. But every couple of days like you say you do should be ok I would think.

+1 I think oil thins out quicker from running rich during longer warm up times too. Parked mine in Dec and will start it in Mar. Sorry, I don't have an answer to your problem though.

It sounds like it could be an issue, just frozen SOMETHING. You could take your air filter out temporarily and just start it back up a couple days later?