What did you do with your XS today?

My Niece and Nephew in law bought a house about an hour north of me. The weather was perfect for a nice cruise up to see their new place. Took the backroads all the way up and just enjoyed the ride. Bike ran perfect and I'm loving how well it performs now with the new throttle shaft seals! I really wished I did them sooner!
 
This last winter I read the book Boys in the Boat about the 1936 US Olympic mens 8-man crew team. And now with the 2024 Olympics in progress I realized there is one place I can ride to where both of these events intersect:
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Here's Trusty Rusty at the Princeton University boathouse on Lake Carnegie. This is where the 1936 crew team rowed their qualifying regatta to represent the US in the Olympics in Berlin. It is also the training site for the current US Olympic rowers at the Paris games. Even though the boathouse has been added on to, this is the same facade that would have greeted the 1936 team.

Princeton is in a fairly congested area, but I found a route through some farmland and neighborhoods which resulted in a very nice ride. Also something I found interesting was that when I passed other riders in the Princeton area, they were all on e-bikes. And they seemed shocked that I waved at them.
 
I just finished some recent rides to visit what might be termed "roadside Americana." In the 1800's Louis Renault took his grape vines from France, immigrated to the U.S. and established a winery in New Jersey. In the 1920s or 30s, the Renault winery built some roadside advertising in the form of large Champagne bottles made of concrete along the main routes between New York and Atlantic City as well as Philadelphia and Atlantic City. I had come across two of them over the years, but decided searching them all out would make for some fun riding. So here they are:

Bayville, NJ:
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New Gretna, NJ:
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Hammonton, NJ:
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Egg Harbor Township, NJ:
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The winery still a going concern, so I had to get Trusty Rusty there as well:
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Made plans to create a gear indicator. Ordered a sacrificial spare neutral position sensor--I'll be drilling the middle part out, casting clear resin in the hole, and using that window to see where the indicator pin falls to identify the gear positions. Once I've got a template from that, I'll drill and tap out holes at the right places on the "real" one, pop in some brass fasteners, wire it up. I got the idea from Tggraff, but I don't have anywhere near the same equipment access, so we're gonna get creative.

I'm not new to fixing bikes but I am pretty new to riding, so it's just a bit of an emotional support farkle until I learn to shift intuitively. If it works, I'm happy to share plans. If not, forget I said anything 😜
 
I had a pretty advanced plan for a gear indicator on the Bandit, using a few colored led's in patterns so they'd be obvious in peripheral vision. But I wrecked that bike before starting on it. The current ride has a gear display... its fine, but not as useful as it seems, I guess because I got in the habit of knowing the gear based on the speed and feel of the bike which persists on the current ride.

+1 for developing gear shift skills :)
 
Meanwhile in the present, I took it easy today--adjusted the clutch, and gave my leather tail-bag a nice proper waterproofing treatment. Classic horsehair brush, saddle soap, and mink-oil routine I use on all my leather goods. In the process, got a moment to fall in love with the changing seasons: light breeze, 80* F (26* C). A welcome change from the sunny 105* F I've done most of the work in!
 
Finished replacing the fork springs and oil! Boy howdy does it feel nice to not dive three inches anytime I brake... or move the bike forward... or look at the bike sideways. Pretty sure the old ones were the ones it was born with, I compared the new springs to the originals and it was maybe a 6 inch difference where it should have been 0.75 😬

I went with the Progressive 11-1115s, and they were a stressful nightmare to install because of my bootleg technique (vise and a 6" jaw puller), but I got them done. I did 20W fork oil, and the pair seems like a winning combo. Took a quick spin around the neighborhood and it was like the old boy finally woke up! The experience is much more... I don't know, confident. Big recommend on those springs! Just make sure the closer-together coils go up, there's a tiny line about that in the instructions.
 
Everything is all back together and it feels nice and tight now. Took me a little longer to get it just right and give the arm a coat of paint. I'm lucky to be wfh and when things are slow, can pop out to the garage for little here and there, but didn't want to head out for a ride until after 5:30. So hopefully it feels as good on the road as it does on the center stand.
An extra day later and took it for a ride. The back end feels really tight now. The odd, intermittent squirm is gone and cornering is far more confidence inspiring. Never realized just how so little play could unsettle the bike the way it did.
 
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I love fall riding, so headed out to look at some 20th century communications technology that is now defunct. Back before satellites, ships used shortwave radio to stay in communication with land and one of the stations that did that was owned by AT&T. They used really big antenna farms and powerful transmitters and patched the radio comms into their landline phone network so that ships could place "calls" to persons on land using telephones.

Here's Trusty Rusty near the receiving station at Manahawkin, NJ. Across the marsh are the poles that held the antenna arrays. Some transatlantic telephone cables also came ashore at this location and direct access to the site is not allowed, so something else may be going on there that I don't know about. Regardless, I couldn't get too close with the bike.
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The transmitter for the station was located about 10 miles north in Ocean Gate, NJ. The antenna pole farm has been removed as part of a wetland restoration effort, but the old transmitter building is still standing and looks to be pretty popular with urban explorers and taggers.
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The gate was open for this site, so I did go in and walked around the outside. I am sure this will be gone in the not too distant future as well.
 
@tstidham your bike looks a lot like mine, and is what it wants to be when it grows up :D

As for me--adjusted my chain tension, adjusted my clutch, put in 5 miles around my neighborhood, broke the 25mph barrier (be nice, I'm a newbie) and got baby's first exhaust pipe burn, lmao. I feel like I'm starting to "get" shifting. I thought something was wrong with my transmission, or my engine was revving too high, but it's user error.

I'm actually really proud of myself for just going for it and letting myself learn through mistakes rather than freaking out and shutting it down the second I shifted too rough. Also, a cute little kid on a bicycle got really excited to see me and I waved back like a pro ✌️
 

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