Friday night, jumped on the Interceptor and zipped down to Old World in Huntington Beach. This place is fashioned after an old German village, and has a bunch of small shops, a German restaurant and beer hall, and a small outdoor/indoor concert venue that serves pretzels and beer. My Dad brought me to this place when I was a kid (so he could drink beer), and I still like going to see local bands. It's officially Pretzel Fest at Old World, and a cool 80s tribute band called Living in Stereo was playing (oddly they didn't play the Cars song that they named the band after). I hadn't had a pretzel yet during this Fest and Mrs. is out of town for work, so I met my friend there. The Orange County Fair is also going on nearby, and Friday evening brought a ton of fair traffic. The Interceptor is great for zipping through traffic. I can't help but ride it like a hooligan bike. When the Weiner Dog Races come in a few weeks, I'll have to ride back!
Music heard, pretzel consumed, but beer was passed on. I had just a slight remaining headache from an "experimental cocktail" that Mrs. had me test the night before, and the day's delivery riding had rendered an all-time (so far anyway) 109 degrees. Plus, I had an early Saturday morning tour at the museum and wanted to be fresh.
Speaking of the museum, this was pretty random and fortuitous. I was rotating the Enfield into my previous 60-mile commute at the job I left in early March. Right about the time that job started and with tariffs on Indian goods looming, I grabbed an OEM Enfield Touring Seat off of eBay India to make the ride more comfortable. Also snagged some snazzy slip-on mufflers and some common replacement parts like clutch cables, etc. The seat was what I called the "loaf of bread" style, which Pdedse will recognize, as that was the seat he had on his Interceptor. Comfy and thick, adding over an inch to the height of my existing seat, and narrow down its full length, like a black vinyl loaf of French bread. While my posterior appreciated all of that extra cushion, the rest of my 5'8" body was now hunched forward on the taller seat. I'm sure Pdedse, who is much taller than me, appreciated that.
A different style OEM touring seat, that wasn't as tall, came up in my FB Marketplace suggestions. The location looked like it was just a few blocks from the museum, so on a whim, I messaged the seller with a picture of my seat and asked if he'd be interested in trading seats. It turned out that he wanted to sell his to buy the style I had. Great! We met up and traded seats, and I think I'll like this one. It widens up quite a bit after the front rider area, which looks interesting, and has lots of neato top stitching.
And, while I was riding in 109 temps on Friday (that was the hottest spot in the Jurupa Valley area of Riverside - it managed to get down to 103 for most of the rest of the ride), the "It was bound to happen"... happened. I got a warning light on the dash for a low tire, triggered by one of the TPMS sensors. Not uncommon, as some of the bikes have old sensors with dying batteries, and we'll switch them out as needed when we replace tires. But rather than a solid triangle, this one was red and flashing. OK, got my attention enough to pull off of the freeway just to take a look. And, found a nail in the back tire that had just been replaced two weeks ago. Ugh.
Had to stop for air a few times to get home from my runs, and while it was a small nail, the loss was increasing rapidly. Luckily, the single-side swingarm makes rear wheel removal easy, as long as you pull the muffler first to make some room. New tire in place, and hopefully we can go without another nail for a while...
