Parasitic draw and Battery issues?

[thedaydreamer]

Hi all
2001 VS1400

My last battery lasted about 13mo, I used the mighty max YTX16 OEM compatible, my riding habits are as followes, I go for a little city ride for about 15min, push to about 65 or so, cruise around town,,,,but maybe no more than 15min 4x a week, I have a suspicion that its possible my rides are not long enough and the battery never really recovers, after about 3 months of riding, one day go to start and its cranking real weak, like a weak battery, MM read 12.4, put in on the trickle over night, back to 13.1v bang, starts right up,,,,,4 months later, same thing, 4 months later same things, BUT this time, MM read 13v and bike cranked fine, rode it for 5 min, parked bike, came out hr later for another ride, MM read 12.75, very weak crank,,,pulled battery put on load tester and it fails the load test (bad),,,,,put new battery in, fired fight up, but this time have a battery tender on it,,,,,
There could be some draw but not sure,,,,,I left battery in unhooked - put MM DCV hooked one lead to - terminal and the other to lead,,,MM read .77 with no fluctuation, from my uderstanding if there is draw it will read negative on MM here are my questions

1. Whats the sitting draw on the vs1400 given what I did, am I doing it right?

2. Is my riding style "hurting" the battery , kind of killing it slowly?

3. I understand that battery tenders prolong battery life is this accurate? now after every ride, I just plug it in, when it goes green I unplug, is this a good idea?

4. Any other resonable ways to test draw on the VS?

Its entirely possible that I got a bad battery in the first place, what are you guys thoughts on this?

TY all!!!

[hillsy v2]

You want to connect your MM / voltmeter to the battery when the engine is running. You should see around 13.5V at idle and around 14.5V at revs.

If you are getting below 13V at idle then the charging system is suspect - which could be stator, R/R or bad wiring connections.

[thedaydreamer]

Yes, I did that and checks good, you like using the battery tender?

[hillsy v2]

Yes, I did that and checks good, you like using the battery tender?

I do have a battery tender which automatically switches from charging to maintenance (trickle). It is a good thing as I can leave it connected without having to worry about overcharging the battery.