Lil LIGHTNING Power Pack
Thursday, April 21, 2016 at 10:30AM
Riding so many miles so far away from anyone and quite often by myself, I had an epiphany. I am all alone out here exploring new areas in canyons, sand washes and deserted hills and must rely on my bike and myself to fix anything that goes bad or it is an overnight stay and a very long walk to help. More often than not I do not have cell phone reception, so it is that kind of remote.
My current off road bike is a KTM 500 xcw that has an electric start with a kick start back up. Just one of the many reasons I chose it. Batteries fail and the kick starter is my insurance, but since I do ride on occasion with others that ride bikes without kick starters I don’t want to choose between riding a very long way out double or leaving the guy there.
A while back I was shown a slick little device called the LIL LIGHTNING jumper pack by a buddy, Matt, that owns a motorcycle shop in Butte, Montana. It was very compact and Matt said it would jump his street bike several times and could jump a car. I was a bit skeptical at the car part but ordered one and have been carrying it for a year now.
In that years’ time it has been used 3 times! Twice on a guy with a kick start equipped 530 KTM that couldn’t start it on our ride in the middle of a 7-mile-long sand wash and the battery was kaput! No one in our group was looking forward to towing him out of a long sand wash with a strap. The lightning pack fired his bike up and we were back on our way. Twice, he stalled!
Then the third time was to start a borrowed Nissan Pathfinder while I was in San Felipe, Mexico! It actually did start the V-6 Nissan. I was impressed because this is their smallest compact version. They make two more upsized models for heavy applications.
On this last trip to Baja I pulled it out of my pack to show it to one of the guys with no kick start option on a new Husky. To my surprise the Lithium-ion battery had swelled and ruptured the outer casing. The contents were still contained inside with no mess and the pack still showed a full charge on the test lights! When I returned home from the trip I called the toll free number and spoke to Karen who simply asked me when I bought it as it had a one-year warranty. It was one year to the month! She laughed and said “you pushed it right to the limit didn’t you!”
She told me to box it up and send it back to her and she would send me a new one upon receiving it. Now that is customer service and standing behind your product. When I use up this next one I will certainly replace it with another LIL LIGHTNING!
#33
‘wear out, don’t rust out – get out and Ride’
Reader Comments (1)
I was in that group with the 530and thank god Eric had this!!...I will be getting one soon!!