Hi everyone. My name is Mike and I live in San Francisco. I just bought my first Harley this past weekend. I have been riding jap bikes for several years. My new to me bike is a 1996 Harley Sportster 1200. It seemed to be in good shape and has low miles, but naturally I found out it has issues. It ran fine for a day then started right up the next day and shut down after about 30 seconds. Now it will crank but not fire. I checked fuses, spark plugs, fuel line, and wire connections. I guess I'll find out just how expensive owning a Harley can be...
I'm hoping it's a bad connection or the coil. I sure hope it's not a valve issue or ECM, or worse...

make sure the petcock is pointing in the right direction
sounds like you ran it out of gas...

make sure your gas is still good
check your connections