Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Birdy (almost) in the bush

Everything was going great, the coast road was a shiny black stretch of British B road standard hardtop, and I had made good time since leaving Asafi. The black line of tar winding through the blinding white buildings allowed my mind to switch on to autopilot and let me get on with the business of watching Morocco go by. The surface slowly started deteriorating after ten k, until the conveyer smooth concrete became cracked up crazy paving that demanded full attention. All good, I enjoy the challenge. Progress was slowed but it was warm, and I was in a foreign country where the sun shone over the sea making it glitter like the broken glass littering the sides of the road.

I rounded a blind corner, a rocky scree slope obscuring the apex, and saw a gaggle of skinny children running into the road to palm rocks. Assume waving positions. With an open face helmet and combat trousers on, I didn’t fancy running a volley of rocks, even if only lobbed by pipe cleaner constructed kids. I threw my hand up to wave, and about a dozen Moroccan children broke simultaneously into massive smiles and waved enthusiastically back as they dropped their forgotten projectiles. I felt momentarily on top of the world; everyone likes to make a kid smile, I had averted disaster, and been treated like a visiting pop star into the bargain. Then I looked back to the road. And then saw the Cub swallowing pothole in front of me.

The high sun had hidden it from a distance, smothering its shadow; but now, at 5 feet and closing it opened into a black hole vortex. It was half the width of the road, directly in front of me, at least a foot wide, and deep enough to drop my front wheel most of the way up to its axle. On a bigger bike with adult sized wheels it could have been ridden out, but scooter saddled; if my front wheel hit it; it would be game over Player 1.

I grabbed the bar back; and launched a manoeuvre I haven’t tried since my biketrials riding days; the bunny hop. With the gift of retrospect it was probably a foolish thing to attempt on a fully laden scooter, but I didn’t have long to decide. The suspension helped me with some bounce, and the front lofted easily, being unladen and made of rubber and tinfoil, but the rear proved slightly more difficult. Even though I hauled up with all my 14 stone, the tyre did not move an inch from the floor: Fortunately, the lofted front wheel cleared the gap, and landed safely on the other side, as momentum brought my back wheel over. Well almost, the forwards momentum had stopped it landing in the pothole, but had brought it smashing down on the lip. The impact felt like it was going to snap the Cub in two, and the noise was like a skip full of ball bearings being thrown into hell, but forward momentum continued! Result. A hundred metres down the road, I stopped to check that I was still in one piece. I pulled over, expecting my swing arm to be hanging in two or my wheel 45 degrees out of line, but miraculously everything was perfect; these babies are made of strong stuff. Then I noticed the topbox; one of my winter gloves was hanging out. The impact had jerked the lock open and my kit had been bouncing out. When I bought the Cub, the topbox had been thrown in as a deal sweetener, even though the key was snapped off in the lock. With a few of the pins from the barrel removed; a key from my parents “cupboard of keys that time forgot a use for” was persuaded to fit, but it meant if shaken too much; the lock would swing open. Apparently it thought it had been shaken too much.

I worried at first that I had lost my other winter glove, possibly a strange worry to have on the edge of the Sahara, but you can never be too prepared ( I never have been.) Fortunately the gloves were still there but closer inspection showed that I had lost the leftover chocolate biscuits that a friendly Western Saharan had given me a couple of days before; they must have escaped and been kidnapped by the hell children. Darn those pesky kids, I hope they enjoyed their soggy and petrol tainted biscuits. Luckily for me, nothing more important seemed to have gone the way of the biscuits.

I continued my clueless bimble along the seaside just enjoying life; enjoying the beady gulls and friendly farmers who waved from their donkey drawn carts as my little donkey whizzed by. If I had passed by back in biblical days the scenery would not be much different, the same farmers would be ploughing the same fields wearing the same flip flops. I doubt that it can be a difficult life, but it has to be preferable to a lifetime in an office?

I had been concentrating on not thinking so hard, I hadn’t noticed that my fuel gauge was screaming red at me, so I pulled up to refuel. With now well practiced ease I swung into the routine. Seat up. Filler cap off. Auxiliary tank opened. Key from right hand jacket pocket. Open topbox. Remove siphoning tube from topbox. Er…remove siphoning tube from topbox. Bugger. It was gone the way of the biscuits.

Maybe I hadn’t been so lucky after all, the most important piece of equipment I had in there had left me. I couldn’t siphon the petrol from my auxiliary to the main tank without that piece of rubber tube. I had plenty of petrol but no way of getting it into the main tank. I was going to be like one of those people who dehydrate in the desert with a full waterbottle on their belt.

No drama, I would simply ride to the next village and buy a bit of pipe off of someone, or fill my main tank from a petrol station. I hadn’t moved more than five miles when the Cub coughed for the first time. No worries, I knew from experience that I still had at least a mile before it finally died. Sure enough, a mile later, she coughed and died for the last time. I had been going over ways in my head to get fuel to my engine. I had thought of using my spoon to transport it across, using a sock to soak it up and then wring it out over the tank, of rigging up an elaborate condensation rig like Ray Mears would, or even taking everything off the bike; unscrewing the tank and having a good old fashioned tip it out. As I could see the hazy haloed roofs of the next town I decided to walk it in.

It was a lovely day for riding in nothing more than jacket and combats, or sitting on a beach somewhere, but after two minutes of uphill pushing I was starting to leak. It must have looked ridiculous, like a really bad even in Worlds Strongest Man, the “Uphill loaded Cub Shunt;” doesn’t have quite the wow factor of pulling Jumbos or lifting Minis. I took my jacket off and laid it over my luggage, but had nowhere to rest my helmet so I kept it on, sensibly retaining 60% of my body heat.

I reached the outskirts of the town, to the bemused stares of the local “sitting arabs,” that feature of every Arab town; the people who just seem to loiter on the fringes with no apparent vocation other than squatting and staring. In a slight turn of fortune, one of the first shops I found was a garage, with 5 oily Moroccans stood around a prehistoric tractor, having some kind of conference. I thought about joining in; walking up and joining in the session, before saying “nah; its ****ed lads.” They were so deep in thought I don’t believe it would have been noticed. I coughed “sobah al khayr," and they all turned around to see this drowned rat stood panting over a scooter in a mass of hair and sweat. Equally as bemused as the squatters, they seemed to appreciate the novelty, and they were soon all clamouring around trying to help, fingering the bike, chattering a million miles an hour, clearing things away. It was then that I realised I had forgotten the Arabic for “hose.”

The only synonym I managed to come up with was “tunnel,” which not really being a synonym, only confused matters. I had to resort to the ancient interpretive art of dance and mime. I held up my hands in front of my face and made elaborate “hose” gestures while sucking in and out to demonstrate what I wanted it for. As the little crowd erupted into uncontrollable laughter I realised I had used the international sign language for “wanking off an extravagant member into the mouth,” not, as I had intended, “I need a hose for siphoning.”

That route exhausted, I made the more sensible decision to abandon attempts at language and simply walk into the workshop and point at a hose. “Ahhh,” came the replies. Within two minutes, ten dirham lighter saw me with a hose, refuelled and ready to go. I got on my way, and left the effusive mechanics waving and smiling behind me. It then hit me. “Khartoum,” the Arabic word for hose is “Khartoum,” the same word as the Capital of Sudan and “elephants trunk:” No worries.