I spoke to a mechanic at Capital Moto in Clapham (where I bought my bike) who suggested that I speak to Bike Trac before trying any other solutions.
He explained that when the Bike Track doesn’t have signal it will try extra hard for a short period of time to find some signal, thus making draining worse when you bike is underground.
Just got off the phone with Bike Trac who confirmed this and tweaked some settings.
We’ll see what happens!
@Jay still see your very valid point about not having signal on the bike while its parked, but sadly I don’t see a way I can boost that signal down there.
Bike Trac has its own internal battery, so it only draws power from your bike’s battery when it needs it. However, BikeTrac also notifies you if your battery voltage drops, so you should never be left with a flat battery.
It’s just like your mobile it tells you when you need to charge it:iphone:
I’m a couple of years late to this, but I got my brand new Enfield last year, and got BikeTrac fitted to increase security as my last bike got stolen. Its been fine so far using a jump starter after holidays or after a week or two of only doing short rides, but I came back from a two week holiday recently and despite multiple really long rides that should have re-charged the battery fully, I’m having to jump start it everytime.
So it seems that I have damaged the battery by jump starting it, or the device itself has damaged the battery. Given it was brand new 18 months ago, this isn’t ideal.
Has anyone else had this issue longer term with their bikes?
All modern bikes and cars are hard on batteries: immobilisers, alarms, clocks, flashing LEDs, various ECUs, engines have got bigger so more energy needed to turn them over, etc. I’m on several car forums and usually the first answer to strange problems and spurious error messages is to renew the battery, and it usually works.
Add a tracker into the equation and flat batteries are guaranteed.
Batteries seldom fully recover from being completely flattened. You can take it for runs, you can recharge it, you can use a charger that promises a deep reset but it all probability it will no longer hold its charge long. It probably hasn’t been damaged from jump starting but from being allowed go fully flat. Time for a new battery.
I have a BikeTrac on mine and I keep it plugged in on an Optimate charger. Even then, I had to replace the battery after it was six years old because even on an Optimate it greeted me the death rattle of a starter solenoid unable to engage.
I was touring a few weeks ago and on a Sunday morning, in Besançon, we checked out of our hotel, strapped all the gear on, unlocked the bikes, helmets and gloves on, hopped on the bikes, and my friend’s Suzuki gave a couple of lethargic chugs and gave up.
Tried pushing it, couldn’t get it to fire. I headed off, on our remaining working bike, to find a hypermarket selling bike batteries. Found the largest one, it had shelves full of car batteries but not one bike battery. Bought jump leads. Tried Carole Nash breakdown service - voicemail. Tried another supermarket, nada.
Then before we resorted to jumping by chance we found the local baker charging his Harley. There are worst places to spend a couple of hours waiting for a charge than a patisserie and coffee shop. My mate bought a new battery the moment he could the following day.
