Dead bike

I got up for work this morning after a week or so away to find my work bike, a 3 year old 650 Dragstar was dead, as in totally powerless. So today I had to use the Harley to get to work, not fun in London UK rush hour.

I initially thought kids pissing about in the shared garage set off the alarm which drained the battery. This evening I checked the fuses all of which we fine, I then put the battery on charge, 4 hours later, nothing. I guess there are 3 possibilities, my charger is bust, the battery is fubar or there is a major electrical fault. I strongly suspect the battery, and given it is a sealed zero maintenance job means it will need replacing. This is annoying and if it is the battery it is not the first time I have had a Yamaha battery fail on me at around the same age, 3 years.

Oh well, I guess I was planning to have this bike serviced soon and given a pre winter check, so some of the cost is planned for if this ends up as a recovery job to get it to a mechanic.

I think I'll try to pick up a new battery today, see if this fixes the problem. As Chuck says they only last for about 3 years, so if it is not the battery it will fail soon enough anyway.

I picked up a new battery. Bugged the neighbours as I fitted it, since the alarm kept going off. From my point of view the alarm going off was a good thing, it meant "not a dead bike". It is all sorted now, the bike started first time. I suppose I should arange to have the dead battery safely disposed of.

I think I'd rather drop it on a fat cat banker. Preferably somewhere more painful than his head.