More Life Than I Could Have Dreamed
Just roll it on in here and plug it in, they told me, so I did.
The weather was nice a few days ago, with a forecast for a lot worse, so I planned to take the Concours for a ride. I geared up, rolled it out, climbed on and pushed the starter. Grunt, grunt, sigh. That motor is not going to start like that. So I hooked it up to my trickle charger and left it for a few hours.
Second try, grunt, nothing. Uh oh, I think I’m going to need a new battery.
I pulled the seat off and removed everything else you have to move to get to the battery and oh man, were those terminals corroded. I couldn’t remember when I put this battery in but clearly it was not any time recently.
First I had to struggle to disconnect the terminals. A screwdriver was not going to do it, and after dissolving away the corrosion they still would not budge. A screw bit in an adapter on a ratchet wrench–lots of leverage–did the job. OK, now I can go get a new one.
But as I set it on the workbench I saw a plastic holder with paperwork stuck on the side and when I looked at the papers I was stunned. I bought this battery in 2010. Thirteen years ago!
I remembered it then. I was writing for Examiner.com at the time and I rode out to Laughlin, Nevada, for the Laughlin River Run. When I was ready to leave home I had to charge the battery a bit to get it to start but didn’t think much about it.
Somehow I made it to Laughlin but once I got there the battery was giving me problems again. I was staying at a private campground and the only place to plug it in was in the club house. The guys who lived there told me to go ahead and just roll the bike into the club house and plug it in. So I did. That’s that photo above.
That really didn’t solve things so I bit the bullet and went to get a new battery. I paid what I recall being an exorbitant price for a new battery, but the guy told me it was a 10-year battery. I wasn’t sure I believed that but I was pretty much over a barrel. And then I pretty much forgot about it, apparently for a very long time.
When the bike was new it always fired up instantly as soon as I pushed the starter button and it has not done that in a long time. Now I see that what was probably going on was the battery was dying a slow, extended death. I put in the new one as soon as I got home with it, hit the starter, and it fired up instantly. How nice.
So now I have a new battery. I’m sure I paid a lot more for this new one, with a three-year warranty, than I did for the old 10-year battery way back then. Inflation. But now I’m going to mark it on my calendar and in three years or so I’m going to start looking around in advance to see where I can find another 10-year battery. Those things are worth it.
Biker Quote for Today
The only part you really need will also be the only part on permanent backorder.
