Well, I don't know whether I jinxed myself by wearing a BMW Motorcycles shirt yesterday when riding the Rocket, or acknowledging the Eastern Beaver Relay without knowing anything about it, but the bike would not start to get me home from work yesterday. It appears that I have all the symptoms of the dreaded ignition swithch failure.
Yesterday morning I rolled the bike out, turned the key and there was nothing. I turned it off, changed the position of the handlebars, turned it back on, and it started right up. I should have been suspicious right there. After work, it was much worse. The gauges would only do their activation sweep and return intermittently, and there were more times when nothing would happen. When it did look right, the gauges would flash off quickly before the neutral light would stay on. Pressing the starter button did nothing. I could hear a faint click down on the right side, under the cover, assuming that is where the starter relay might be. Horn worked, even when the gauge lights were off. Played with the key, exerted different pressure, moved the wires coming out of the bottom of the ignition cylinder. Could not maintain a solid connection. Numerous repetitions of the same, even tried bump starting it after pushing it up a loading dock ramp. Couldn't engage the starter at all.
Roadside assist from Foremost covered $250 of the $300 tow charge to get me home last night, and the Rocket is in the garage today. Good thing I have the BMW as backup!
This morning, I have found two threads that contain similar stories. I'm going back to resume at page 2 of 10 in the common issues forum about the Ignition switch failure. If I can figure out the bypass fix, I might be able to ride it to the dealer, or hopefully be able to fix it myself. Wish me luck.