the café the saga that had brought us here . The owner shared our enthusiasm for bikes and joined us , getting out his phone with photos of his shiny R1 , much to Aidan ’ s approval . We chatted about bikes until the blue pick-up returned .
Ali spoke some Turkish and he and the owner went inside . Upon his return we were told the bill had been taken care of . Gutfeel told us to just go along with it , so we thanked the owner and smiled goodbye . On the way to the truck Ali told us that having heard how we ’ d helped him , and since we are all bikers , the owner had given us the meal for free . But in Turkey it is deemed rude not to charge anything at all , so he had charged the princely sum of 10TL - just under a dollar - for the entire feast .
The blue pick-up delivered us back to the freight company just in time to witness the DRZ dangling mid-air above the edge of the truck that was to deliver it to Ankara . Having spent all morning complaining about his unfortunate purchase , Ali was out of the pick-up like a shot to rescue his baby and make sure it was tucked away safely for the journey .
Our factory worker friend used the diversion to sneak off for a shower and a change of clothes . As the truck departed in a dusty cloud towards Ankara , he returned and proudly invited all of us into his tyrerefurbishment factory to show us around . Ali did his best to translate the process into English as we were taken from one big solid-iron machine to the next . Old threadbare tyres are shaved down , then built back up with layers and layers of rubber , and finally hot-pressed in a pressurised mould to form a new tread . There were the sharp edges that shaved the remainders of the old tread off the tyre , the station where strips of rubber were glued on in layers by hand and the huge press that has scorching hot water running around the outside to melt the new tread into shape , belching out steam from the seams . I was fascinated ! Perhaps it ’ s not very girly , but I love all things mechanical - the retro romance and honest simplicity of pieces of iron and steel fitting together just right to function the way they should without any hidden electronics involved .
The humid air was stiflingly pungent with rubber and the low ceilings and faded green walls were blackened over the years . Small windows let in little light , and a dim lamp lit a table at the back . But the workers managed to make it feel almost homely , pulling up chairs around the table and serving up an excellent glass of instant coffee . An old laptop materialised , and our friend pulled up Facebook to proudly show us pictures of his wife on the vacation they went on some years ago . We were humbled to be hosted so kindly by these men who had so little and tried our best to repay them by sharing the best of our adventure stories so far .
Eventually there was nothing left to do but to pick up our batteries . Once again , we were charged only a pittance , even by local standards . The mechanic informed Aidan that the reason his battery wasn ’ t holding charge was that all the distilled water had evaporated in the heat . Whoops ! Now we felt silly , especially since we had read up about this during our trip preparation . At least the issue was easily solved , and we had two fully functioning bikes again .
By now it was evening and our friends from the factory had families to get home to . We took a few photos posing with the bikes and waved our goodbyes . Ali got out the phone to arrange for himself to get to Ankara . He ended up having to tell the whole story all over again , so his call took a long while and we hung around to make sure he was all set .
A couple of guys from the freight company were on their way home when they spotted us . They disappeared back into their office and minutes later emerged with a juicy watermelon cut into slices . To them this was such a normal thing to do for travelling strangers , they hardly accepted our thanks and left us standing lost for words with red , sticky juice dripping from our hands . A watermelon has never tasted so good as it did then , on that dusty street in the hot evening sun .
When Ali was good to go , we said our goodbyes , agreeing to meet up in Ankara with three functioning bikes in a few weeks ’ time , before riding out to find camp . Sadly , the meet-up never came to pass as circumstance and a limited time on our visa meant we didn ’ t end up going to Ankara after all . We found out later that the DRZ ’ s engine had indeed seized and a whole lot of work had to be done to revive the bike . Ali had forgotten to check the oil level upon purchase , not something you think of in all the excitement of picking up your new bike and had run the engine dry !
And Icebear ? He moved to Georgia a few months later … MS
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