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I thought you all might these two recent XStories interesting:
I went on vacation for Labor Day weekend and had my brother coming over to my house to pay attention to the cats, get the mail, feed the Oscar, etc. I left the keys to the bike on the table and said that if he wants to take her out to go for it, and he did. He rode from my house in Albany to his in Corvallis and parked her for the night. No problem. The next day, rode her to work. I got a phone call Friday afternoon around 5:00...it's Dan asking, "Ummm...have you ever had any problems with your bike just not starting? The damn thing won't even turn over." I was at a loss, so I told him to leave the bike at the office (we work together, so I knew it would be safe), and that I would deal with it when I returned.
I got a call from Dan the next day asking if there was some kind of accessory one notch below locking the handle bars. I said that there was; a way to leave parking lights on for when you are pulled over and want to leave some lights on while not running the bike. I'm sure you know where I'm headed with this. Yep, that morning he got to the office and turned the key too far when locking the handle bars. Since it was 9:00 in the morning, he didn't see that the lights were on and went about his day...effectively killing the battery. Poor guy thought he killed my bike. When I got back, I put a tender on for the day and she fired right up that afternoon. Whew!
Here's another good one:
On my way home from work the other day, I was headed for a busy intersection, so I let off the throttle and the bike sputtered a bit, backfired rather loudly and then.......nothing. She just up and quit, as though the day had gone on too long and she'd had enough. Thankfully I had enough momentum to coast into a big parking lot.
Of course I was on my way to meet a client and my band had rehearsal that night (I run a recording studio), so I called my wife to have her meet the client, and begun tearing off side covers. Nothing on the right side - all wires and fuses intact. I almost threw up my hands and screamed in defeat, but decided to yank the left side cover off "just in case" there was something there. Low and behold, the negative lead to the battery had broken off on the battery end. Great. My wife showed up to get me, so my original plan was to head home and get tools to MacGyver something to get her home, but when I noticed that the auto parts store was open, I pulled in, grabbed the shortest battery cable I could find, some washers, and headed back to the bike. Less than 5 minutes later she was up and running again. Whew!
So there you have it. You never know what might happen.
I went on vacation for Labor Day weekend and had my brother coming over to my house to pay attention to the cats, get the mail, feed the Oscar, etc. I left the keys to the bike on the table and said that if he wants to take her out to go for it, and he did. He rode from my house in Albany to his in Corvallis and parked her for the night. No problem. The next day, rode her to work. I got a phone call Friday afternoon around 5:00...it's Dan asking, "Ummm...have you ever had any problems with your bike just not starting? The damn thing won't even turn over." I was at a loss, so I told him to leave the bike at the office (we work together, so I knew it would be safe), and that I would deal with it when I returned.
I got a call from Dan the next day asking if there was some kind of accessory one notch below locking the handle bars. I said that there was; a way to leave parking lights on for when you are pulled over and want to leave some lights on while not running the bike. I'm sure you know where I'm headed with this. Yep, that morning he got to the office and turned the key too far when locking the handle bars. Since it was 9:00 in the morning, he didn't see that the lights were on and went about his day...effectively killing the battery. Poor guy thought he killed my bike. When I got back, I put a tender on for the day and she fired right up that afternoon. Whew!
Here's another good one:
On my way home from work the other day, I was headed for a busy intersection, so I let off the throttle and the bike sputtered a bit, backfired rather loudly and then.......nothing. She just up and quit, as though the day had gone on too long and she'd had enough. Thankfully I had enough momentum to coast into a big parking lot.
Of course I was on my way to meet a client and my band had rehearsal that night (I run a recording studio), so I called my wife to have her meet the client, and begun tearing off side covers. Nothing on the right side - all wires and fuses intact. I almost threw up my hands and screamed in defeat, but decided to yank the left side cover off "just in case" there was something there. Low and behold, the negative lead to the battery had broken off on the battery end. Great. My wife showed up to get me, so my original plan was to head home and get tools to MacGyver something to get her home, but when I noticed that the auto parts store was open, I pulled in, grabbed the shortest battery cable I could find, some washers, and headed back to the bike. Less than 5 minutes later she was up and running again. Whew!
So there you have it. You never know what might happen.
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