Ignition switch position

Ready to go for a ride the other day. Normal routine...start bike, let warm up while putting on helmet and gloves. Turned on the key, heard the fuel pump charge up, and hit the starter. It cranked and cranked and cranked, but would not fire. I was so dumbfounded that I hit the starter again but it did the same thing. I had heard of others having trouble with this type of thing, so I was trying to remember what they did to get them started when I reached for the key and found that it had a tiny bet of travel to the right, and clicked into the on position. Apparently I had not quite turned the key far enough to engage the ignition, but far enough to run the fuel pump. I don't remember if the gauges did their sweep.

Just thought this was kind of interesting and wondered if it has happened to anyone else.

Not exactly the same thing, but something similar and a bit scarier:

I was on a (unfortunately necessary) night-time run a few weeks ago on a major 4-lane highway. I had pulled out at a roadside rest stop for a stretch and a pee, then hopped back on to resume my trip. I turn up the lane to rejoin the flow of traffic, when just like that - blackness and silence! I had no lights, no engine, nothing. I had found a large gap in traffic, the merge lane was on the down side of the crest of a hill, and there was no moon so it really was pitch dark. I had to coast to a stop and hope I was somewhere near the fog line near the end of the merge lane. I learned that coasting in pitch blackness at 110 km/hr is not something I enjoy very much.

Shortly after I stopped and as I was wishing that I had hazard lights that worked (and thanking myself for wearing the hi-vis vest) I quickly realized that it was a simple case of the ignition being cut off. This was the first run with a new key that I had had cut (my old one was looking bent and weak and I didn't trust it to last for the 9-day trip ahead). I remember having, when I started off from the rest stop a not-quite fully formed thought to the effect of "huh, that new key doesn't quite sit in the ignition in the same position as the old one - must be because it's not bent." In retrospect it appears that the key had engaged enough to start the bike and run normally until I hit a bump in the pavement of some sort that caused the key to slide back out to the "off" position and cut all power.

I blamed it on a slightly rough new key and have been careful to make sure it's fully "on" ever since, but It wasn't one of my better moments on my FJR. When I hear stories about GM and Chrysler ignition switches being turned off when people hit their knees on the keys I can see how things can go south quickly!

Yikes!