Juicing the Goose

The stock battery that came with the bike has seen a lot of miles and a lot of cold starts.  These things take their toll after a while and I'd taken to carrying jumper cables in the saddle bags due to the number of times I hit the starter and wasn't sure if the resulting "kapop...kapop.......ka...pop.........." would kick over into a full start or not.

I'd swung by Cook's Cycle a week and a half ago to pick up a new battery but hadn't gotten around to installing it yet.  The starting became steadily harder each night and Friday when I was leaving work, it took long enough to catch that I'd been eyeing the parking lot for a familiar car to request a jump from.

Then this past Sunday came and brought a forecast of nastiness with it so I figured that would be the last gasp on the roadways for a while.  I contemplated just heading on out but knew that if we caught a break on the weather that allowed us to ride, I wouldn't want to be swapping the battery out at night, after work, in the dark, so I might as well suck it up and do it in the daylight.  So much easier!

It wasn't a hard process and soon I was cleaned up, tools away, ready to go.  I hit that starter and Ba-Bammo!  She fired up with Au-thor-i-tay!  Nice!!

Out and about on the roads, hitting some smaller side stuff, mixing in some highway where I could really rip things open..you know; the usual.

When it was time to head back, I rolled to the local food store for some supplies, packed things away and hit the starter.

BA-BAMMO!  Even more powerful than the first one!  (Jon keeps his batteries charged up but mine, between when he'd charged it last and then the time it sat in my garage, had drained a tiny bit and the crusing around had charged it back up to full capacity.)  Such a sweet sound to hear; hitting the button, and the bike ROARS to life without a moment's notice.  Such sweet music to the ears.

It's currenlty sitting on the tender in the garage, waiting for the next time we can go out and play.  The weather has been wet enough in the daylight and cold enough at night to ensure a fresh coat of black ice and salt on the pavement but that can only last so long...right...?

...like; into June?  :-O

Ride Hard, Take Chances