I hardly carry spare underwear...this guy carries a spare fuel pump
You're really not gonna believe this one.
First off, I appreciate anomalies and good fortune. Having personally conducted over 500 ground missions in Baghdad during "The Surge" and returned home without one of my 45 Soldiers ever getting injured is something I can appreciate. The chances of things turning out that way are almost non-existent. But, this day in Kazakhstan blew my mind.
We had just turned south on M32 to head to Aralsk, which was the next town and next source of fuel...located 203km down the road. Suddenly, Kenny pulled over.
He likes to randomly pull over for water or a break, but this time he didn't catch up. Turns out, his bike wouldn't start at all. Randy, Kenny, and I talked through the normal checks for a while until we narrowed it to two things...either a clogged jet in the carburetor or a bad fuel pump. But Kenny had changed the fuel pump before the trip, so we doubted that a bit. So here we are, trying to fix this bike on the side of a very busy highway. Yes, we were happy to be on tarmac for a change, but the semi trucks screaming by were very unnerving. We were surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert in every direction, and it was 90-degrees with brutal winds. Kinda like being in a blow dryer.
We obviously weren't going to break the carb out in these conditions, and a new fuel pump would take at least a week to have shipped into the nearest town. Maybe we could retrofit something. Either way, we would have to get his bike 200 kilometers south. I tried to wave down a truck that might have space in the back, but no luck. This was quite surprising. People had been so interested in us for days, and now they didn't even want to pull over to see why three motorbikes were camped on the side of the road. I managed to get some police to stop by, but they just said, "tow it with another bike...good luck." You're kidding me!
After a couple futile hours of this, we returned to diagnosing the problem and isolated the fuel pump with great certainty. We suddenly realized the next weeks would turn into a painful wait. At that moment, three bikers pulled over to help. Two were on late model Honda Africa Twin adventure bikes and one was on a BMW two generations older than Green. Note, I had not seen another adventure motorcyclist for weeks, since I'd left the Baltics.
A very focused, softspoken, older gentlemen slid off his Twin. "What's the problem?" His name was Andrej...the Slovenian "Andrew" equivalent. I could tell he was a badass.
"Eeeet died. Maybe zah fuel pump." Kenny.
"So, change the fuel pump," the old man didn't skip a beat. We all laughed. "You mean you don't have a spare with you?" The absolute impossibility of this made the thought just breeze by us all.
"We zink gravity feed might work..." Kenny...love zis Swiss moto maniac.
Okay, so you can bypass the fuel pump and run the fuel line straight from the tank to the carburetor. But, the carburetor is perched fairly high and the tank is shaped in a way that most of the fuel rests below it, so you have to keep the tank almost topped off in order to force fuel into the system. Did I mention where the next fuel station is...?
Tried that, didn't work for a second.
The two younger guys who had just joined us were chatting rapidly in some sort of Russian/Slovenian mesh, trying to see how they could solve the problem as quickly as possible. Randy, Kenny, and I just sat back for a moment. They had been riding through Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Now they were circling back toward home. Really, really cool guys. You could tell they knew motorcycle maintenance. Their bikes were pristine. I'd been proud of how dirty Green had become, but I realized they kept their bikes perfectly clean out of care for them. Nothing to prove. I felt foolish for a moment.
When resourceful and creative ingenuity finally seemed to reach its limit, Andrei clapped and said, "Okay, I'll give you my spare fuel pump." We all laughed again. "What, you don't have a spare?" He went to his bike and pulled out a bag of tools and parts, and there he had a brand new fuel pump for the older model Africa Twins.
I finally chimed in... "Wait, wait, wait, you carry a spare fuel pump for your brand new bikes? No freakin' way."
"Of course...the old ones had bad pumps. The new ones don't even use these, they have a completely different system. So, this part doesn't even go to my bike. But, if the new system fails, I can somehow make this pump work."
You've got to be kidding me. No........way.....
He handed the pump to one of the younger guys and without a word, they went to work. Within 20 minutes, they had pulled the tank off, replaced the pump, and started the old Africa Twin. Kenny helped a bit, but the Slovenian guys were covered in sweat and gasoline by the end.
I laughed so hard. Deliriously impossible.
We all shook hands. They climbed on their steeds and road away. Randy, Kenny, and I were quiet for another 10 minutes, awestruck by what had just happened, before mounting the bikes and heading south.
Undoubtedly this was the most top-notch roadside assistance I've ever encountered. Will vow to pay it forward at the next opportunity...multiple times.
