I bought a new battery, the bike road fine for a while the in the middle of my ride it started slowing down to a complete stop. I couldn't start it again, waited for 20mins, started it and it ran...
One explanation for this would be that your charging system is faulty. It is possible that the OLD battery was ok, but was not getting charged by the faulty charge system. You put in a new battery, that is part charged before sale and ran the battery flat because it wasn't charging. If you leave a discharged lead acid bettery for 20 minutes or so, it will pick up a little again and possibly let the bike start and run, but by the time you got home you had killed the battery completely.
All the facts fit, though I'm not promising that it is the problem.
Take the battery off and charge it with a charger. Now, put it back on the bike and run the bike (It should start) While the battery is on the bike, get a volt meter on it. It should read slightly over voltage (doesn't matter if its a 12 or 6 volt system, it will read a little over when the bike is running) when you turn the engine off, you should see the volt meter drop down to the stated battery voltage. If you get no hike with the engine running and drop as you power off, its a good sign the charging system is faulty. A similar test, start the bike, meter the battery and turn on the indicators, stop light and head light to pull as much power as you can, the battery voltage shouldn't dip, because the charge system should compensate. If it does dip, consider this a confirmation that the charging system is faulty.
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