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Optimate III Battery Charger - Bob Pickett gets a charge out of keeping his battery in tip-top order (and promises to stop using the awful puns one of these days)

Optimate III battery charger - not flash looking, but a very clever piece of kit Anyone that owns more than one bike, or lays up a bike in the "off-season" (whatever that is), or both - or owns a bike that likes it's battery to hold a decent charge - needs a good battery charger.

The answer? The Optimate III. Optimates work on the 'trickle' system, so they start off by running a diagnostic routine to see if the battery is useable, then feeds in the charge on a gradually increasing basis. If things are fine, you will see a yellow light when it is first switched on and in a few hours time (the instructions say about four hours, but twelve hours should be enough for pretty much the deadest of batteries) a green light will appear to show the battery is now fully charged.

Once at full charge, the Optimate will continue to monitor the charge level, gently topping up as and if required. So you can leave the charger running, quietly going about it's business - as long as you are comfortable with the idea of leaving an item of electrical equipment on whilst you are away.

Optimate claim you can revive badly sulphated dead batteries. I can't really back up their claims, but I do know that we've used the Optimate to recharge the battery on a bike that had been sitting at the back of the garage for about four months… no problem and it fired up first press of the button. It also managed to feed enough charge into a truly knackered battery to get the bike going to ride to the dealers (put on the meter, you could see the charge literally bleeding out of the cells).

Another excellent feature of the Optimate - and definitely worth having if you are a multiple bike owner - is that there are two types of connector available. You get two sets with the Optimate, one the standard 'crocodile' clip and the other an eyelet lead for permanent connection to the bike.

The Optimate connects to the terminals by a socket on the charger's cables, so the connectors are interchangeable. Optimate sell the connectors separately (but you get one of each as standard), so buy spares, attach one to each bike and then you can simply plug in the 'spare' bike. The other benefit being that you don't have to take off the saddle every time you want to charge the battery - a real pain on some bikes.

Verdict: : If you own more than one bike, put bikes away for the Winter or just want to make sure you can take care of your bike's battery, buy an Optimate III.

The best price we found for an Optimate III was at gardening specialist, The Green Reaper

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