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Bike abandoned in Birmingham as for the second time it refuses to start after a night out in the rain. This never happens when I'm at home, only when it's really inconvenient and I'm 40 miles from my battery charger!

Well Mr.Falco... if you get nicked then you've only got yourself to blame. If you're still there on Friday then you had better have sorted yourself out!

*harumph*

Starting with the simple things ..... what's your starting technique?
The method specified by Aprilia is usually pretty effective.

• Fast Idle fully open
  Don't touch the throttle
  Hit the starter and wait for it to fire

It is not that difficult to flood these bikes and there is a pretty reliable technique to get them going when flooded.

• Hold the throttle fully open and crank until it fires and clears itself.

This is ONLY to be tried when the standard method has failed and you may have flooded it.

Of course you could have got some other problem such as water in the electrics or one of the sensors or something - but might as well start with the simple stuff

Thank for that.

It usually catches within one turn. Mind you... on the way home on the train I did wonder if some scallywag had flicked the kill switch (I didn't check it).

I'll be back in a couple of days with some jump leads - I didn't want to run the battery out and with it raining all day there was no prospect of the thing drying out. The last time this happened - 4 weeks ago, there was a real heavy fog but it was trying to fire until the battery died.

Probably best out of the weather - although it does live outside at my place, albeit under a cover.

Well I going to tempt fate as I set off this morning in the shotty weather and so far the bike is coping a damn site better than me. Though sometimes the day after it complains. I would say if the battery is suspect best changing it as apparently it can contribute to faking a sprag

So fR so good as I am at Buxton buying kitchen gloves still got to get over cat and fiddle