Still not pleased (at least with me)

See, I had to go and complaine about the rain and the Motorcycle Gods, and now read what happens!

My usual parking situation goes as follows: Morning, I open my garage and set my lunch, coffee, and purse/bag on the hood of my car. I back out my motorcycle, grab my stuff from the front of the car and move it to the passenger seat, pull out my car, and re-park my motorcycle in the spot recently vacated by my car. Evening: I pull up alongside my garage and open it up. I back out my motorcycle, back in my car (Being VERY careful not to hit T’s motorcycle. His is the VTX 1300R parked in the back of the garage in the back right corner of the picture), and then drive my motorcycle into the small space right next to the front driver side of my car in my one-car garage.

So I get home Friday evening just after the clouds had opened up and let down a torrential downpour. I pull up to my garage and use my clicker to open it up, expecting to be able to just pull out my bike and back in my car. T’s bike is parked in the middle of the garage, so that must be moved first. I park my car in an empty stall and run inside to get T’s motorcycle keys. I get back to the garage and park his bike in the back corner. I then pull out my bike, back in my car, and pull in my bike. I close the garage and run for the house to get out of the rain.

I am stuck in the house all day Saturday waiting for the repair guy to fix my running, now leaking toilet. He finally arrives around 3:30, and by that time I begin to prepare dinner and end up staying inside all day. Sunday dawns clear but chilly. I decide to ride out to lunch somewhere. I get all my leather gear on and head out to the garage. I hadn’t been able to find my motorcycle key, but just assumed I had left it in my bike on Friday. I sometimes do this if I am in a hurry, but only when my motorcycle is parked in the locked garage. Sure enough, there they are, in the ignition, turned to the ON position! I had left my bike on when I ran out of the garage on Friday! I had drained my battery!

I had been having small battery problems; it would take a few tries and a couple of minutes for my bike to start if it hadn’t been run in the past 24 hours, but nothing serious. I figured I would just wait until I took my bike in for service before I would bother with replacing it. Instead fate (or the unhappy Motorcycle Gods) had interviened and I dropped $80.00 on Sunday for a new battery. The old one was so drained that when I attached it to a trickle charger, the thing didn’t even register that it was attached to something it could charge! The kind folks at Mission Motorsport filled up my battery and I took it home to charge. Hopefully it will be ready for me to install this evening when I get home!