As has already been established, I am from Wisconsin, where we have riding seasons. I am not going to lie to you either, I am a wuss, so my season is even a bit shorter than some. (I hate to freeze
) Usually sometime in about October/November the batteries come out of the bikes, and make it to the basement for their winter home. About Aprilish each year they come back out and thats when the fun begins.
This year was no exception! We just built our house (Feb,2004), and last summer we first installed our yard. We spent a lot of time and money, so we decided until we had all our spring chores done with the yard, we would not bring out the bikes. We knew as soon as we did, all available free time would be spent doing something with them, and neglecting the yard we worked so hard for the year before.
We pulled the bikes out of the garage onto the driveway and were looking them over, making sure all was good. (mine is filthy) I was thinking over the winter that maybe I would like my passenger seat and sissy bar taken off my bike to change the look a bit. So.....out came the wrenches. We got it off and I looked at it....Bill looked at it.....nope, looks better on, so we reinstalled everything and did one last recheck. It was good as is I guess.
Bill then went to go get the batteries. Kind of funny, we were both like little kids on Christmas morning. We put the batteries in, and then it was the moment of truth. Time to try to crank 'em up. I hit my starter button and I got an immediate pop, then dead. Hmmmm...tried again, after all we ran gas out of the carbs for winter storage, it will take a bit to get gas flowing again right? Tried again, and again, and a few more times too...Same thing each time...she tried to fire, wanted to so bad but just wouldn't. I kept saying, it wasn't getting gas. Bill was kinda disgusted by this point, so he turned his attention to his bike, a 1992 Honda Nighthawk 750. Second try, it fired right up.
Now his bike is idling next to mine and we are trying everything known to man to get mine to start. Is the kill switch up? yes.....Is the fuel on? yes.....Maybe we pushed way too much fuel through already and its flooded. Nope took the plug out, dry as a bone and looks good too. Is there gas in the tank? look inside, yep.
Bill is a fairly impatient man, so off came the air cleaner cover, and out came the starting fluid! One little squirt, she fired right off....soon as I hit the throttle, she died. We were two steps away from taking apart the fuel pump when Bill said to me "humor me honey, hit it one more time". So I hit the starter and just like that she fired right off like it always used to, and kept on running. I asked him what he did and he said the only thing he did differently was turn the fuel petcock to reserve!!! I about died..45 minutes later and that's all it was?!?!?
Then I started to think and it all came back to me...HOW COULD WE HAVE FORGOTTEN????
Our last ride of the season last year we were out and my bike kept loosing power (remeber I am a newb). I pulled over and checked a few things and off agian....about mile later, same thing.....Bill pulled up behind me and told me to check my gas....yep, it was pretty low...I go to switch it to reserve and OOOOPS, it was already on reserve!! (btw I still blame HIM for this ) So I beeline back to town, and try to make it home. We figured if it would make it home, it would be better to store with as little gas as possible anyways. I made it home just fine, we weren't too far away. BUT as you alreay read....totally forgot about that little episode this spring. So when I turned the fuel from the off position, I naturally turned in ON not to RES....o well, newby lesson learned I guess.
After all that we went for a short ride (after fueling up). It was a beautiful day, and I'll tell you all about that later on.
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