Help! Bike won't start

And it's a lovely day.

Battery was too low to get it going. Put it on charge for 10 minutes.
Back on bike. Turns over enough to fire once, but immediately afterwards
the battery is completly flat - just about works the clock. Won't even
light the panel lights.

What's happened?

 

Either flat or fucked.

Has it got an alarm, how old is the battery?

--


Nige,

Land Rover 90
Yamaha R1
Range Rover Vogue

 

You have not used it for a while and the alarm has battened the flattery.
This abuse has probably buggered the battery so a replacement may be
needed. Put it on charge overnight and hope .......

 

The battery went flat and you haven't left it long enough to charge.

 

consequences of bike owned by numpty

don't you have some jump leads and a Seat?

 

I disconnected the alarm years ago. Used the bike a couple of weeks ago
and the battery is about 3 years old.

 

I understand that, but for the battery to go from being able to turn the
engine, to absolutely flat in 2 seconds, sounds a bit rare.

 

I do. That may be the next move, but I want to be sure the bike will
start again if I stop en-route.

 

It would be, but it didn't.

It was already flat, but with enough juice to turn the starter once or twice.

 

If the battery isn't fucked, and you ride it for long enough to get
some charge in it - which is much longer than 10 minutes - then you
should be fine.

Alternatively, don't stop en-route.

 

See my reply to dnc.

 

So it was magic then?

 

take the jump leads with you and don't stop in a village where the only
transport is a donkey

 

Did you pick and eat some wild mushrooms lately?

Okay, I suppose 'flat' could be constured as a binary term, in which case

s/flat/really very fucking dishacarged but not quite flat.

Empty <--^--------------------------------------------------> Full

Trying to start the bike took the last bits of juice that were left,
which were insufficient to fire the bike. 10 minutes of charge put some
juice back into the battery, but not enough.

 

Hmmmm - 3 years is about right for a cheap battery. Next time pay the
extra and get a Yuasa or Varta. Charging overnight might revive it.
It is a good idea to keep any bike which is not used regularly on
an optimate to keep it topped up. Batteries do not like cold weather.

 

But I have never seen a battery go *that* flat ie; won't even light the
ignition light. I was wondering if the kick-back might have done
something magical to the starter which then had a word with the solenoid.
Or something. Look, I don't know - that's why I asked.

 

'Cold' in this case is probably 25C.

 

They put the small rubbish batteries in those bikes, get rid of it.

 

See my other reply - either flat is binary or it isn't.

If it is, then the idiot lights won't light.
If it isn't, then there was enough juice to light the lights and you
used it up.

 

But it's a genuine Huitong! Actually, it's been on the Optimate for the
last few months - that is - until a couple of weeks ago. It's actually
only the bike's second battery in 12 years. I think the original was
Yuasa. Got the latest one from Dave Wood. He told me it was a good make.
He's a racer, so I'm sure he didn't make that up.