I have never had a problem jumping with a car battery... but I have never had a battery as dead as your's was. The cheapest risk is to disconnect the battery and then charge it off of the car with the engine running. Turn off the car, reconnect the battery, hook the cables from the car back up and try the start. The only thing you might ruin is the battery... saves you a problem with the expensive stuff.

 

In my 48 years of riding ( 42 on H-D's) I've had on stator to go bad at 39,000 miles, and one voltage regulator at about 25,000 miles (I think this was in the bad batch of '12 model year issues) but I've had countless batteries to last less than 5 years (I change mine every 3 years just as PM).

Perhaps the weather in AL will help extend your battery's life, but it has been my experience that once a motorcycle battery was discharged as badly as yours I was only successful once in getting a battery to fully re-charge and retain that charge for any length of time.

Monitor your volt meter and watch for signs of your bike not cranking normally.

Good luck.

 

Can you elaborate more on the '12 model year issues?? I have a 2012 Road King. I always keep the bike on a battery tender. Took it out for the first ride of the season and the check engine and battery lights came on. Rode the bike home and the battery was dead. Fault codes stored indicated high and low voltage faults. Replaced the battery with a new battery I had at home and cleared the codes. Again, lights came on after riding about 25 minutes. Voltage at idle is about 13.8 volts. Are there model year issues in '12 directing affecting the charging system and what components are they ??