I took delivery of my new Spyder in mid-March, and I just checked, and have only ridden it 385 miles in that time.
150 miles of that was a single round trip to the dealer.
So ignoring that one trip, I'm only averaging 70-80 miles per month.
And other than one trip that included about 5 miles at freeway speeds, most of the time I'm riding at 35 mph, although there's one stretch in town of 45 mph.
And yes, I've been varying the engine RPMs while driving and not allowing it to stay at constant RPM
Yes, I need to ride more. Yes, I want to ride more.
But I'm still getting comfortable with riding my Spyder, and only three times have I had it on the freeway.
So yes, I do need the battery tender until I start riding more, even though it means I'll probably need to replace the battery sooner than if I rode more.
I'm a long time AAA member, and added AAA Motorcycle coverage when I bought my Spyder, so I'm covered if something goes wrong.
As I was writing this I started thinking about an argument I recently had with the service department at the local Honda dealer.
I bought a Honda Ridgeline in June 2023.
Last fall I got a call from the Honda dealer's service department, wanting to to schedule my Ridgeline for it's 50,000 mile service.
I told them I didn't have that many miles on my Ridgeline, and they tried to insist I did, and that I should check and then call them back to schedule the needed service.
Honda's have a Maintenance Minder system that displays a little wrench icon when it's time to have something done, and when it does you can scroll through a list of codes that tell you what needs to be done.
My Ridgeline still hasn't told me it's time for it's first oil change, which is the first item on the maintenance list.
But, since my Ridgeline is just about a year old I'll be taking it in soon for it's first oil and filter change, since oil change interval is when the maintenance minder says so, or one year, whichever comes first.
And I'll probably have to argue with them about changing the oil filter, as Honda says you only need to change the filter every other oil change.
And now I'm feeling like some grouchy old guy, that keeps arguing with all those young whippersnappers.