J
James.A
Guest
As the self-proclaimed King of the Luddites, I am here to tell you that I would never own a bike that doesn't have a kick starter. It was a lovely afternoon here last thursday. Over run with sunshine, temperature at 80 degrees with a slight breeze, damn near perfect weather. I was standing in the parking lot at my place of employment all geared up for my ride home. I engaged the ignition key on my blue, 1973 R75/5 and mashed on the starter button only to be greeted with the sound of silence. Not a click or groan or anything at all. At that moment, the voice in my head said "this is why God invented kick starters". With the key on, I opened the enrichers and stepped thru the kicker a few times until it kicked back at me. Now I'm thinking that I might actually get away with this. I closed the enricher and with the throttle twisted ever so slightly I gave it a good swift kick. Vrroom!, the motor roars to life. A disaster averted by that quaint, primitive device known as a kicker. Fast-forward to the present. In a few moments I am going out to my garage to diagnose the fault. I thought it might be fun to run a contest to see who can correctly guess/diagnose what the problem is. The prize will be unlimited free beer the next time you see me at a rally or camp-out. Here is a hint, the generator light does NOT glow when the key is engaged. Let's have some fun with this and maybe learn something as well.
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