The first thing I buy for any bike is a battery tender and adapter harness for the battery. Even if your lucky enough to live in a climate where you can ride your bike everyday there are still times when the bike doesn’t get ridden. My friend TarSnake has a Harley and just got back from 3 weeks in Europe and then a week in Seattle and his bike didn’t start. My advice to him was “buy a tender and if you do it right now you should be able to start it in a couple of days”. Here are some facts for you guys:
Most car/bike batteries are not deep cycle; this translates into them not being good at being all the way drained and all the way charged repeatedly. These batteries like to be charged.
Fuel injected bikes are pretty much impossible to bump/push start.
There are other reasons for the battery tender such as the super useful battery harness which can be used to power heated gear or in the case of Adventure Bikes run small air compressors.
Newer bikes have more electronics that run even when the bike is off (clocks, anti theft, etc..) having a cheap (less than $50) battery tender will make sure the bike starts when its that one nice day March and you just wanted to ride for a few hours.
There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t have one and I will spend more detail around storing you bike for winter in a future post (before October I promise).
