2004 Bonneville Starting Woes

Went to start my bike for the spring and nothing!! Battery is good, replaced the starter solenoid so it's good. Checked all fuses, checked the starter button and its passing voltage across when button is pressed. The power is just not getting from there to the blade connector on top of the starter solenoid. I connected alligator clips to the negative battery terminal and from positive battery terminal to the blade connector and voila it fires right up!!! Where do I look next? oh, and also, the bike is in neutral and the kickstand is up.... Not sure how to easily check those as the kickstand switch doesn't have removeable wires and i don't even know where the neutral switch is...