Mines always a pig to start in gear, helps by taking the slack out of the throttle cable though.

Mine too,so much so that I just start in neutral every time,saves a lot of grief.

In my day that's all you could do......

Yes, but that's another puzzle as to why Honda can't (due to clutch drag) produce a trials bike that will consistently start in gear when they have made millions of road bikes that would.

My 07 starts fine in gear once it's wormed up. Little stubborn when cold but can be done.

As so many folk offered advice I thought I had better post an update following yesterday’s trial.

 

I made a point of starting the bike every evening through the week and it always started first go.

 

At the trial it started first go and did so for most of the event occasionally needing up to four kicks but only one reset.  It seemed to need more kicks if I had left it on its side rather than the propstand; the injection, as opposed to a carb, shouldn’t really be affected by this but there we go. 

 

I found that putting the piston against compression then pushing down, rather than easing over compression before doing so as with a traditional fourstroke, produced the best results.  However, I don't notice others doing this so while it is still not apparently 100% the problem largely seems to have sorted itself, perhaps as a result of extended running at the correct tickover setting?  A class win was a nice wee bonus; perhaps the psychological effect of a bike behaving as it should.

 

It even started in gear once, which impressed one of my riding partners who never managed this in ten years with his last 4RT.