Well, I had an interesting experience a couple of days ago. I was making a 100 mile round trip ride to buy a used Nikon DSLR I found on craigslist.

Perfect day for riding, partly cloudy, around 80, cool breezes, I was like

The last few miles were in town, stop lights every half mile or so, and the bike started acting weird, when I gave it a little gas the tachometer went the wrong way, and I was like . I just revved it good while I let out the clutch and it seemed to work okay. Then I got lost, so I had to stop to pull out my GPS (which I keep in my jacket pocket for now). I pulled into a parking lot and killed the engine while I got the directions.

Cool, all good, re-oriented and ready to go! FINE-C'd the sucker, hit the starter, and........nothing happened!

Checked to make sure I didn't forget something, like the ignition switch, but nope everything was cool, except for absolutely nothing happened when I hit the starter, except for the dashlights dimmed a little bit. Weird. I gave the horn a little toot, very weak. Oooookk. Well I can push start it right? Nope.

Thirty minutes later, and two helping pushes by a friendly NC State Trooper and I finally had it started! Awesome, on to the camera!

Made it the sellers house, but it was still acting weird, and it died as I pulled into the their drive...

Alright, business done, camera purchased, time to push start the sucker again. About a mile of pushing the goddamn thing and about 3 gallons of perspiration later - because now it's 90 degrees and I'm decked out in my riding gear (which started coming off the longer it took to get the damn thing started) - I got her started again.

Two miles down the road it died, more pushing, 2 more miles, more dying, you get the picture?

I finally gave it up and pushed it the half mile to the gas station down the road. So I'm an hour away from home with a bike that won't start or run and I am soaked to the bone with sweat and dead tired. So I buy a gatorade and sit in the shade for a little bit.

I can't figure out what's wrong with the damn thing. I haven't had any starter issues sine I've had it (like a month) but I can't shake the feeling that it's electrical. Horn's weak, starter not functioning, weird response to increase in throttle, what the hell man?

Of course I don't have any tools on me, but I look across the parking lot and see a Lowe's. Okay, my rear fairings aren't on the bike anyway (different story) so all I need is a crescent wrench to get the seat off and check the battery, cause that's the only thing I can think of/can do in a parking lot with no tools and limited funds.

So I trudge across the seemingly miles-wide parking lot with my camera, tripod, jacket, helmet and half-emtpy gatorade and buy a 9 dollar crescent wrench, then walk back kinda hoping somebody's stolen it by then. No I don't, I'm still an hour away from home

Get back to the bike, get the seat off, wiggle the negative cable, solid. Wiggle the positive cable, it practically comes off! Six or 7 turns of the wrench to tighten it up, put the seat on, FINE-C, hit the starter, and it tries to start! But the battery is obviously seriously depleted. One last push start and she fires right up! Idles great, runs great, 50 minutes later I'm home!

Very long story short, just check the battery cable dude....

Oh and a heartfelt thanks to my brother for not tightening the battery cable before I bought the bike from him!

 

That BLOWS bro glaf u got her home couldn imagine being stuck an hr away from home with adead bike.

 

My girlfriends first bike (Ninja 250, great bike, she now rides a F2) had this problem. Turns out that it never had the negative terminal nut. It gave up on the freeway, and I found that out after 10 minutes and found a bolt and nut that would work off my bike and used it to keep her on the road.

 

Crazy man, thousands of dollars worth of metal, plastic, and electronics and a $.50 nut can shut the whole thing down....