Well I put a little lube on the cable, charged the battery overnight, and made sure throttle was in the proper position and started her up today. No problems. I'm thinking that that module was indeed the cruise module, and for whatever reason it was stuck after sitting for a week and in the cold weather (9F). I played with the pedel and was not able to reproduce the symptom, so hopefully it was just an anomaly, maybe related to the way I have it rigged up electrically.

Thanks very much Heathdogg and PLH for your input! Will report back if anything further develops.