Re: Parking lights - how long should the battery last?

[Wayne Woodruff <wayne@xxxxxxxx>]

>Hi,
>
>Last week I had to - ouch - ask a cager to help me start my bike. I
>left it in the parking lot at a customer's site in the morning with
>the parking lights on and when I came back there wasn't enough juice
>left in the battery to start the bike.
>
>My bad, but I would expect that the parking lights would take longer
>to drain the battery. I just rode ~50 miles so I would expect the
>battery to be fully charged when I parked the bike. It was cold-ish,
>around freezing point, and I left the bike for around 8 hours.
>
>Is it a signal that I have to start thinking about a new battery (I
>guess that this is the original one from '99) or should I just be more
>careful?

You should be thinking about a new battery.  6+ years is very good.
Plus the new ones will be gel, so it will not need to be topped off
with water :-)

I do not think 50 miles is nearly enough to charge it. 
Wayne Woodruff
http://www.jtan.com/~wayne

------------------------------