My busa's had the key in the ignition for three years. I've left the key in my old 14's ignition for prolonged periods. I have the key to my 14R sitting in the ignition right now. I wouldn't do this and leave the bike outside for obvious reasons. Aside from increased risk of theft, is there any harm that will come from leaving the key in the ignition forever? I won't ever loose my key if i do.

Now that's a good question. I wouldn't think so, since I don't think NA bikes have any real electrical activity associated. I don't know for example, if immobilizers may activate some sort of sensor when near or in the ignition.

I'd think as long as you keep the lock lubed, this might actually be good for the ignition lock. Not that I think wear and tear on locks seems to be an issue, even for bike with 100k miles and key put in and out 1000s of times. But yours would be less.

Risk? I don't know, something like this. Having a party and you're in your back yard with friends, you hear a motorcycle start and someone bouncing the rev limiter and you're like "glad that's not my bike!" As you investigate further you find people in your garage and indeed, it actually IS your bike. And while they clearly weren't actually going to ride it, they did tell you "It's OK, I do that to my bike all the time!"

Like the time I woke up one morning and heard some poor SOB getting his car towed for having it parked there between 7 and 10 am. Then it hit me, I forgot to move my car the night before. I think I remembered after that.

Thanks for the input, Vic.

Yes. Eventually you'll have to ride the bike to a gas station, or park for lunch and lock the front end.

and then the key goes right back where it came from.

Growing up in a city I have completely opposite views on security. I lock my doors. When I'm at the gas station, and usually where I even get fuel, there's no one else there, and I still keep my keys in my pocket until ready to leave.

I'm sure I don't have the worst "security" history, but growing up our house was broken into 3 times. Both my brother most of my friends, and I had car stereo stuff stolen, windows broken out and vandalized, one of my friends car was stolen while it was warming up, although to be fair we lived in different areas of the city.

So I am very security minded. I live in a really good neighborhood now and even the kids seem "good". But we'll see as many are entering their teen years now, hopefully they stay that way. Once in while I may wash the bike and leave the garage door up while going for the dry off ride. But my inner garage door in still locked ;) Kind of dumb, have a lot of nice/expensive tools someone could walk off with.

I get ya, Vic. When I lived in Milwaukee, I was a lot more careful and I still got stuff ripped off. I had my car window busted one time so the thief could steel a cheap leather jacket. I don't even remember wearing that jacket, all I know is it was worth far less than what replacing that window cost. There was another time someone broke into my car and they were good enough to at least bust the small wind window on my old Corolla. I always locked my apartment door when I was gone. For some reason, I didn't bother when I was there and as you might expect, I did have someone come in one time. Whoever it was left in a hurry when they realized I was there.

Those were crazy, wonderful times in my life. I really should have had a bike back then. I had the best woman in the world when I was 25. She actually told me I should buy a sport bike. I guess it would have been a ZX-11. I remember sitting on a silver one at a dealership and I was thinking, WOW, 1100 ccs! Or maybe a Blackbird!!!

You know, I should have all of those bikes. A ZX-12 and a first gen Hayabusa too. That girl married someone else but if that guy's luck runs out and he croaks, I'll marry her now or some time in the future. LOL I'm not keeping tabs on her. She's nowhere to be found online. All I know is I'd marry that girl sight unseen. Doesn't matter at all what she looks like now, she was the best for me. Too bad I let that slip away. I have some cool bikes though.

As I said, I live in a good area of the city, in a nice neighborhood. A few years ago now, someone knocks on my door. It's my neighbor. They proceed to warn me that they had a drunk/druggy (in my view, possibly illegal alien) walk into their house a few minutes ago, and he left after they pointed a shotgun at him. So apparently, they at least did leave their doors unlocked. I don't know if they still do or not.

A few minutes later I needed to leave and as I was pulling out of my garage, several sheriff cars and officers were arriving in the area. They didn't stop me but did seem to be looking in my direction, possibly for any signs of me being involved in whatever about this druggy (like a hostage situation, he could've been inside my house, in my truck, in the back of my truck etc.)

IIRC they caught him walking again a couple miles again from our neighborhood. As it turned out, the druggy was at a bar a few hours earlier and stabbed someone, so LE were already looking for him. He had then walked about 5 miles, I guess arriving at my neighborhood and decided to walk into their house, which all sort of makes sense with his path. Who knows what might have happened if they (couple and their 3 younger kids at the time) didn't have a gun, and or further not able to defend themselves against a drugged out knife maniac.

I don't think he tried my house but he might have, and he might have tried another house or two..I don't know.

So the thought of someone just randomly walking into my garage and possibly taking off on my bike? Doesn't seem too far from a possibility that can be avoided most likely by having the keys in the house behind a locked door. It's a small precaution that can save a big headache.

Yikes! I'm going out and getting that bike in the garage right now. There's never been any problem with thefts or weird people around here but it's true, you never know.