[kawasakifan91]

Came out of work tonight and had left my parking lights on for 10 hours!!!!! Not to mention the night was very cold, go to start er up, flat! Never before have i had a flat battery or even attempted to push start. This was on my s1000rr. So i got some mates behind me and got them to push me in 1st gear, to about 12km/h then droped the clutch and she fired up. My question is, after that, i kept riding, even with the low temp light displaying, as i figured i should keep her running to prevent it going out on me and charge her up. Didn't thrash it, but as i got onto the freeway i thought... wtf, im riding my bike cold as a mofo and iv never done this before. I really hope i did no damager to her .

 

[goingtoscotland]

you didn't have to keep riding. you could have just let it warm up normally at idle

 

[Sev]

LoL, I just start the bike and go every time. On every bike that I've ever woned.

I've seen people warm their rides up for in excess of 15 minutes. Seriously what is wrong with them. It really just needs a couple of seconds.

The question I have, is if you were worried about riding it cold, why didn't you put it in neutral and wait?

 

[kawasakifan91]

Iv never done it before, even to cars iv never had flat battery. So i thought stoppin' she would go out on me. Stupid

 

[Nassty]

LoL, I just start the bike and go every time. On every bike that I've ever woned.

I've seen people warm their rides up for in excess of 15 minutes. Seriously what is wrong with them. It really just needs a couple of seconds.

The question I have, is if you were worried about riding it cold, why didn't you put it in neutral and wait?

I've only push-started a bike once but the engine didn't seem like it would stay running if i stopped moving so i kept riding around the block for a bit...also the bike wouldn't top 7k rpms even after it warmed up....but i never had a problem like that again? weird?

...and I really don't warm the bike up more than two minutes...if it's cold out i'll give the engine a little rev to make sure it sounds smooth and then go

 

[nevada]

Came out of work tonight and had left my parking lights on for 10 hours!!!!! Not to mention the night was very cold, go to start er up, flat! Never before have i had a flat battery or even attempted to push start. This was on my s1000rr. So i got some mates behind me and got them to push me in 1st gear, to about 12km/h then droped the clutch and she fired up. My question is, after that, i kept riding, even with the low temp light displaying, as i figured i should keep her running to prevent it going out on me and charge her up. Didn't thrash it, but as i got onto the freeway i thought... wtf, im riding my bike cold as a mofo and iv never done this before. I really hope i did no damager to her .

you didnt hurt anything. its probably not a good idea to do it all the time, but once in awhile is fine.

but you're going to want to put a trickle charger on that battery. as riding it wont fully charge it.

 

[whitehendrix]

you didnt hurt anything. its probably not a good idea to do it all the time, but once in awhile is fine.

but you're going to want to put a trickle charger on that battery. as riding it wont fully charge it.

:iamwithstupid:​

 

[williamr]

I did the same thing yesterday with the Street Triple - no chance of push starting that as the ECU just cuts out at low voltage and you'd have to keep pushing for about 30 seconds or so fast enough to get up to about 11.5V and stay there - not even sure if the alternator is enabled. It's sometimes a bit tricky to extract the key in the steering lock position and as you wriggle it to get it out you can inadvertently switch it to 'park' and leave the sidelights on. The key always comes out easy in that position, of course lol.

Lucky that a colleague had a set of jump leads in his car.

Depending on the bike and the state of the battery, most bikes will run fine at idle after a push or jump start, but some need a few revs. Should never need to run it at more than about 2K rpm though to keep the engine running.

Better to use second or even third gear if you push start. On a lighter bike, in first you're more likely to lock the rear wheel than fire it up.

On warm up generally you need a few seconds for the oil to circulate - I give it the time it takes to pull my gloves on - then ride it easy until it's up to normal temperature. You save fuel by allowing a longer warm up - three or four minutes - before you ride off, but unless you're doing very short trips it isn't enough to worry about.

The other thing I did was to give the battery a fast charge when I got home as I only had 40 minutes before needing the bike again. Fast charges are OK as long as they're not on for very long - half an hour is about the sensible limit - and you don't do it too often.

Rob

 

[weebel]

You'll be fine, bikes warm up pretty damn fast when being ridden. Just dont do it all the time.

I've push started my suzuki plenty of times, but the ZX6R only once.. I dont like doing it on that bike.. its to hard to jump on it once you get it moving and when it fires up it likes to lift the front end off the ground before my ass even hits the seat.

 

[Shakinlaw]

Okay: Bike Mechanics for dummies...

I've always heard of it, but exactly HOW do you do a push start and how does it actually work?

Also after a battery has been depleted like the OP's, does a trickle charge restore the battery good as new? And why is a trickle charge better than a quick one??

 

[nevada]

Okay: Bike Mechanics for dummies...

I've always heard of it, but exactly HOW do you do a push start and how does it actually work?

Also after a battery has been depleted like the OP's, does a trickle charge restore the battery good as new? And why is a trickle charge better than a quick one??

same as a car. get it rolling. put it in gear, and let out the clutch. make sure the key, and kill switch are on.

and a quick charge will overheat the battery. these are small batteries, they need a long, slow charge. generally less than 1 amp.

AND sometimes you can bring the battery back. but usually when theyre completely dead, they rarely fully return to 100%. thats not to say you cant charge it up, and use it for a long time. but it might be at a 99.9% capacity...

 

[BKSlim]

I've seen people warm their rides up for in excess of 15 minutes. Seriously what is wrong with them. It really just needs a couple of seconds.

They might have carbs and low temperatures.

 

[Sev]

They might have carbs and low temperatures.

Still doesn't take 15 minutes.

 

[BKSlim]

Still doesn't take 15 minutes.

Used to take that long on my old 250 in 40-degree weather.