I was having some issues with my aftermarket tail light( the running) light was not working and only one row of LED's were lighting up on the turn signal. So I took a look and after a few mins of poking around I went to start the bike and it had no juice. I put her on the battery charger to "Start" and got her to turn over. I let the bike run for a bit and shut it off and then went to start it again and the battery was dead. it head enough juice to turn the lights on that's it. I only had the bike a month now and I know it been cold, I try to start the bike every day and let it run a bit. Does the bike actually need to be ridden for the stator to recharge the batt????

 

Disconnect those LED's and see WTF.

Stator makes enough juice to charge the bat once RPM's hit about 2K~2.5K. But of course that won't be true if there's something pulling much more current than it should.

 

Cold weather, which tends to highlight poor battery health, coupled with your daily starts and not ridden could have your battery low on juice mate.
Check your voltage before starting, and your running voltage.
If it’s below 12.4 volts before you start, give it a charge. Once you have good voltage start her up and recheck at idle. You ideally will have around 13 volts now and if you increase the rpm it should climb to 14 or so volts. These are rough figures but are the 3 stages you should check to prove you have a good charging system.
With any electrical issue, in your case it was your lights, it’s good to have good base readings to allow you to correctly diagnose your problem easier.
Best of luck and hope you get it sorted mate.

 

Yes, never just start the bike and let it idle, without riding it. At idle the stator is not generating enough juice to charge the battery. If you're not going to ride the bike, just let it sit. There are other issues with not allowing an engine to reach full operating temperature (achieved by riding at least 10 min.) that will cause you problems down the road.

Also, motorcycle batteries are fairly fragile and it only takes a couple of times draining them completely for them to never fully recover. Your best bet if you aren't riding every day, get yourself a battery tender keep the bike plugged in whenever it's not on the road.