Yours sounds like a fun trip as well. I love motocamping. You be safe as well, watch out for the pesky cages and wildlife.

OK..take a deep breath....relax. Trust me. In a year or two when you decide to upgrade or get away from the sport altogether, you'll be able to sell it for $2000. You'll have gotten a lot of fun out of it and you'll only be out no more than $500 including all maintenance (and probably gas as well;)). Had you bought the Sporty and decided to upgrade you'd be out $3 grand minimum in a year or two.

You made the right decision. P-erfect bike to learn on, big and comfortable enuff to get out on the highway with the missus riding b!tch.

I can't tell you how smart you were to get this bike for right now.

Perfect opportunity to learn an essential skill, bump starting a bike.

Scott

Scott, I'm going to bump it straight into the river.

anyway, I took the battery out, Voltage 11.6 . ok fine, just read the recharge procedure in the manual.
Set the 2 Amp charge. 1 hr later, the voltage across the terminals were 13 Volts. anything over 12.6 V means battery is fully charged.

Reinstalled on bike, went to start it, there's a loud whining sound, it begins to turn over, but just barely. tomorrow I get a new batter.

Life is beautiful

:mad:

Know how you feel. My starter two-wheeler (in my case, 1980 Vespa) is not running and my hands are all greasy trying to figure it out. Arrgh.

I find it funny, given the particular circumstance, how everyone is referring to it as a "great starter bike."

OK, it's a great "non-starter bike"...I stand corrected :)

Perhaps this is a dose of craigslist karma?

Right. I think the problem is the battery. I installed it at 13V, tried to start the bike, voltage dropped down to 8.5 V. not good.

Yea, or it could be the battery. ;)

2 amps for an hour is not going to fully charge a battery that was at 11.6 volts. It would take all night to do that. You were just getting a residual reading from the battery charger.

Anybody remember kick starters? And magnetos? Now those were the days.

woooooo

installed brand new battery. All is well in paradise !

Right now I'm practicing putting it into 1st gear and going in a straight line, walk it back , and repeat. my garage is about 12 feet deep but it's big enough. :)

For god's sake, man. Find a friend who has an endorsement and get to a vacant high school paking and get that thing outta first gear this weekend:D

I posted this previously on another thread - but speaking of tiny helmets, check out the helmet on the dog I spotted this past weekend. The driver had a slightly larger version - and the same blue googles.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1188429567.jpg

right. for now I'm riding around the neighborhood in 1st gear, 15 mph, slow speed stuff. .. a couple of small dead end rotaries in the area are great for practicing slow left and right turns. .. I realized it's hard to make a U-turn on a downhill or uphill. that takes some practice.
I haven't dropped the bike yet and i've been riding for about an hr. :)

a few neighbors wave as a I pass them 3 and 4 times. ha ha. . i guess they figured it out.

My biggest frustration so far - I cannot for the life of me remember to cancel the turn signal. Sounds stupid, is stupid, I know.

Glad your machine is running now.

one thing I noticed, when I depress the clutch, step into 1st gear, there's a loud CLICK sound and sometimes a small jerk. is this normal??? btw, how do I get to 2nd gear on this thing? 1st gear is down from Neutral.

Not that I don't enjoy giving you hell, I do.....but in the interest of your safety get a coach to help you "hands on" before you hurt yourself.

Perfectly normal stuff, on-ramp. It will clunk into gear and jerk especially bad when it is cold, and it will never completely go away even when warmed up. Most bikes run a wet clutch that shares oil with at least the tranny, if not the whole motor and tranny. The cold oil will cause the multiple plates to drag a bit. There are also no synchros in a motorcycle transmission, so they do shift with a far different action and feel than a car.

Neutral is "between" first and second; like you have figured out, push the shifter down for first. Pull it up like you are going back to neutral, but with more authority, and it will go right past neutral and into second. You will notice the lever returns to the same position every time; it's like a sequential gearbox in a car. Just keep pulling it up with your toe for higher gears, and pushing it down with your sole for lower ones.

Stay in the 'hood for now, waving at the friendly neighbors. Don't get it out of second until you find some more room, as long as that "more room" is not the open road. Get a buddy to take it to an empty park'n'ride lot or something. Either follow in your car, or if he is an accomplished rider, swallow your pride and ride b!tch on the back, so you get a feel for what he does.