Not usually needed during riding season. I live in NH and if one of my bikes doesn't see any use for 3-4 weeks, I hook it up as a precaution. We get 4-5 months of winter here...so no riding. When they are down for the winter, I put them on the tender.
Same as above, I use one for both my bike & car over our LONG winter here in Canada.
I'm not sold on them to be honest. I have one and could't ride for 6 months so I put mine on the tender and shortly after the 6 months my battery went dead.
Tenders do not keep batteries at their peak performance much to everyones opinion, they keep batteries at the minimum operating level. I have a Tender Plus model and maybe it was just my bateries time to go but I find it strange that I never had an issue before and then i did with a 3 year old battery.
Rant over lol
we had a battery go bad on sporty after 3 yrs to, and yet at 3 yrs a bike battery can go bad,, so it sounds like someone had a battery that just gave up with a short life
It would be interesting to know if the batteries that had a short life were drained from leaving the ignition on a time or 2. I had a battery that only lasted 2 years, but I did leave the ignition switch on once. It lasted about 6 months after that.
Maintaining optimum voltage/amperage in any form of battery will always prolong it's life.
I plug mine in whenever it's parked in my garage, always have.