Bike Problem

Yesterday, I encountered an unexpected problem with my Yamaha TMAX. I decided to chat with an acquaintance who lives in my neighborhood. I was riding my TMAX at the time. I pulled up to where my acquaintance was working on one of their cars. I turned off the engine on my TMAX BUT, I left the bike's electronics ON. After chatting for about 10 minutes, I tried starting my TMAX only to find out to my dismay that I'd run the battery down so much it couldn't start the bike. The TMAX only has electronic ignition vice having also a kick starter like my previous Vino Classic had. This hadn't been a problem till now.

I let the bike sit overnight hoping the battery would get enough of a charge back that I'd be able to start it in the morning. No such luck. I figured I could get someone from Heyser Cycles to come jumpstart the bike. I found out you don't jumpstart a TMAX and, it isn't easy to charge the battery. For starters, it's a major job to get to the bike's battery. You have to remove the 2 mirrors, the windshield and the front faceplate just so you can get to the battery. Crap!

The solution ended up being getting the bike picked up and taken to Heyser so their mechanics can work on it. To prevent such a major hassle in the future, I found out you can get an electrical connection connected to the battery which leads to a plug that you can connect an extension cord to. What you would do is plug one end of the extension cord into an electrical socket and the other end into electrical lead which goes to the bike's battery. You would let the dead battery charge overnight and presumably the battery would have enough power to start the bike the next morning. Another plus to this electrical plug is that it's not super expensive (at least for the TMAX anyway). So, while Heyser is getting my battery recharged or replaced, I'll had one of these electrical leads installed to so I won't have to go through this again. Lastly, I won't leave the bike's electronics on when I'm not riding it. That way, I won't end up with a dead battery again (hopefully).