FJR wierdness

Leaving work yesterday I went through the usual routine. Start bike while it's resting on the sidestand, hop on and kick the sidestand back. I've been riding for over 25 years and well over 100,000 miles and have never had this problem, but something about the FJR sidestand and shifter positioning causes me to occasionally accidentally hit the shifter when kicking the sidestand up. So the bike dies because I "tried" to put it in gear without pulling the clutch in (no snide comments from you AE guys please). The neutral light was still on so I tried to hit the starter again to restart the bike. Imagine my surprise when the bike lurched forward because it was actually in gear. Not sure how that works, but them's the facts.

So after ensuring the bike really was really in neutral, I attempted another start. The engine only sputtered and wouldn't start. Another attempt with the same result. I tried turning ignition off and then back on and still the engine only sputtered. Reverting back to my carburated bike days, I gave it some gas while hitting the starter and got it started. Once started, it settled in to it's normal 1500 rpm warmup idle. No problems since then.

I'm not too concerned because all works fine now and I still have original warranty left in case there's really a problem. I'm just curious if I'm the only one that's ever had this experience? Any thoughts on what happened (besides me being "ham footed" with the shifter)?

Other then being ham footed......I don't know.

Don't the GenII bikes have a known issue/problem restarting if they've not been allowed to warm up? That may be all it was. Solution has been a bit of gas on the restart, and off she goes.

Harold, you may have a bad sidestand switch.

It will go bad from time to time. Mine went bad on my 04.

The way you can test to see if it's bad is to disconnect the switch and make a jumper with a piece of wire or a bobbypin will work.

On the hot side of the plugin just loop the wire from one side to the other with some needlenose pliers to stick the wire in.

Hit the starter switch and if it starts and runs fine you know your switch is bad.

If it is and you have the yes warrnty it will be replced free.

You can leave the jumper wire in teporarily so your bike will still operate. Hope this helps.

When your FJR first starts it is running a 'cold enrichment' fuel map which is the equivalent of the choke being on, just like a carbureted bike. When the engine was shut off with the enrichment map running the engine was in effect flooded. Just like the old carb days, cranking the engine with the throttle wide open will allow the flooded engine to start.

As far as being in gear with the neutral light on – that was probably a one time fluke event where mechanical slop in combination with the shifter not being positively shifted like you would when riding may have let the neutral switch turn the light on while in gear.