To be completely honest I don't remember the last time I put a new battery in the bike. A quick search of my blog stated it was over a year ago. One would think that I would get more than a year out of a motorcycle battery, and as I placed my $80 dollars for a new battery on the table of my local dealer he told me that this one should last about a year and half.
I bought me a Bike Master AGM Battery. I probably could have payed less for it on the internet, but I have an event that I wanted to attended on Sunday and frankly I think Sue didn't want to hear me bitch about being off the bike anymore.
There's your problem! Somebody stole your battery
It's an easy enough job to replace the battery and after I did so Kimmie fired right up. I took her around the block of my neighborhood, being thankful that it was not something more serious like the stator. I also decided to buy a trickle charger just in case my bike would end up sitting for longer than I would like (it more or less sat for two weeks as I fought off a mild case of the flu).
I still have the old battery and want my mechanic to run a load test on it. More for my piece of mind than anything else.
On this coming Sunday, I hope to take part in the Orlando Scooters "Ride through the city" event. It is literally a ride from the northern tip of the city of Orlando southward to the southern tip of the city on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I'm wanting to attend simply because I've been wanting to take Kimmie out further than I have in the past. Orlando is about 77 miles away, then I ride through the city...then back home. So I'm looking at at least a 150 miles day (to and from) plus the ride through the city.
That's not a bad ride and I've been wanting to build up my tolerance for riding anyhow. So it's all good. I just hope that life doesn't rear it's ugly head and something comes up, like work.
Plus, getting out of my comfort zone is not a bad thing. Come December and January I will be putting more effort into working independently, which frankly is not an easy thing for a introvert like me to do. That's my goal for the year of 2017. Taking the bike out to Orlando, Jacksonville, Sarasota and other places. I really have no excuse not to anymore.
I have not been riding Kimmie hard or for very far in the last two weeks or so. I've had a persistent head cold and/or allergy and/or sinus issue that has made me lightheaded at best, miserable at worst.
The weather has been glorious however so I've tried to take it out when I can. I know she doesn't like the cold and a few mornings here have been a bit brisk. It's been dry and by the middle of the day the temperatures are perfect for riding, being neither to hot or to cold. By the time I would ride home from work the "brisk-ness" had returned but it's nothing a light sweatshirt or my Freeze-out jacket could handle.
Still though, I sided on the caution to protect my health.
I'm wondering now if I should not of invested in a battery tender or rode the bike more. Now I'm searching around trying to figure out how old my battery is (1 year? 2?...3?).
Sue asked me to run to the store and get a few last minute items, nothing major. I jumped on Kimmie, she fired right up and I was off, a few moments later arriving at my destination. We were having seven people over the house for dinner, and I was not going to be late.
It was not even ten minutes after my arrival. I jump on the bike. No power, no turn over, nothing. I lift the seat and see a little light burning...so she has something in the battery. I check the connections and they are nice and tight.
I get an electrical jump off a car and tell Sue the problem, going about 1 hour and forty miles out of my way in an attempt, misguidedas it may be, to charge the battery.
I get home, our guests have arrived. I eat, I chat, I drink a wonderful wine that highlights the turkey and ham beautify. I laugh.
That is till I try to start Kimmy. Nothing, nada, nope.
Sadly I have to work all day tomorrow being that I drawled the proverbial short stick, but I'm hoping that Saturday I'll be able to get down into the nitty gritty of the problem.
The trouble started, as trouble is prone to do, days before it actually became a issue.
The battery light on my bike came on one day, shocking me into concern. I had not gone down the road that far before it shut off...and I put it down to just a loose wire. Or perhaps caused by the high humidity and rain that is part of daily life in Florida.
The idiot light stayed off for a day or two, making me think that I was correct in my assumption. It stayed off till I had to go to work on Friday. It came on...blinked, blinked....went off, stayed off, came on....blinked. "Great, I'll have to get that looked at."
It stayed off on my ride home on Friday, again convincing me it was nothing.
I have to go to work Saturday morning and I jump on Kimmie expecting her to purr to life as she always has. Nothing. Nada. Not even a clicking noise. Sadly I was at work all day and didn't have a chance to do any work on her. Even when I got home after 4, my day commanded other things.
There are reasons those lights are referred to as "Idiot lights." So here I am on Sunday, testing the fuses. I check the cables and ensure that they are nice and tight. Nothing. I had replaced the battery earlier in the year, so I doubted it was that. I would still need a load test be be sure.
That left a gremlin in the wires. Somewhere there was either a short, or something in the wiring harness. I don't have the tools, or the knowledge, to go searching for something like that.
I was also leaning towards a gremlin in the wires for another reason. I did have power from the battery to the lights for a bit. The bike just wasn't turning over, and then those lights faded. Which to me indicated a issue with the ground wire.
Problem was...how to fix it.
So here I am, first thing in the morning, trying to explain to my
roadside service company that sending a regular pick up truck will not
work. It needs to be a flatbed. Also that you can not jump a
motorcycle battery off of a car battery - while actually you can do this the car needs to be in the "off" position. Why risk more damage to the bike if it's not needed?
As I sit here and write this two thoughts go through my mind. First, I really need to look into switching insurance companies because the one I have is not serving my needs. Two, it may be time to finally say goodby to Kimmie. Well, three thoughts really. I need to learn more about the mechanical workings of my bike.
I love her, I really do. However ever since my accident back in 2014, it seems that Kimmie and I have not been on the same page. She seems to have never really recovered. It's been a slow litany of small annoying issues ever since then. Tires and belts and batteries wear out, I understand that. Things get loose, I understand that...but I try to keep up with the regular maintenance on her. I try to keep her healthy. It's a slow process of nickles and dimes that are starting to add up.
At this time I'm not sure what I want to do. I am considering selling her if the repair costs to much. Trading her in on a younger model...something in the 750 range I'm thinking, although I hate to take on another payment. I'm three to five years away from being financially secure and I really don't wish to take on another debt.
Which leaves me two options. Trade in for another used bike and all the possible issues that brings. Or hold on to her for another two or three years and hope that her slide is minimal or that this electrical issue will be the end of it for a bit. The AMA roadside assistance program would probably not be a bad thing to have in this case, and I am considering joining for that reason - and that I like the idea of putting a scooter on their Longrider program. I've done 10,000 + miles in a year. I can do it again but only if Kimmie wants to cooperate with me.
