While on the road to Almaty we passed two cyclists took pics of them while riding and waved but rode on. A few kms down the road we needed to stop at one of our GPS waypoints where we all meet up with Jeff in the 4×4, they are like cheek points we reach a few times a day to just make sure all is well. When we stopped Cesar noticed a brand new Continental motorbike tire lying next to the road. Thinking it was our lucky day we picked it up. The two cyclists then caught up to us and stopped to have a chat. We mentioned the tire and they said “oh that belongs to Marcus another German guy we met on the road who lost it and has just sent us a text asking us to pick it up if we see it” So they got hold of Marcus and we arranged to meet up with him and give him his tire back. He was so grateful and is a very lucky guy that we found it. Such an incredible coincidence.

Marcus is riding his transalp from Rosenheim in Germany to Vladivostok in Russia so a similar Trans Asia trip to ours. The two cycling, twin brothers Paul and Hansen, are riding across Asia from Berlin to Shanghai over 6 months WOW Hats off to you guys.

In Almaty on my rest day I needed to get to a bike shop and get another master link for my chain and I also had my tires changed. While there I met another 2 German motorcyclists (the Germans sure are in a Trans Asia mood this summer) their one bikes (a triumph tiger) electric system has gone on the fritz completely dead. They were there trying to fix it but said that if they couldn’t  do that after 2 days then their trip was over and the one guy would fly  back with this bike the other was deciding if he wanted to do the same or ride back to Germany alone. The mechanics speak no English so they had contacted a German lady to translate, who is living in Almaty who speaks and teaches Russian here. So she helped me as well and the while the bikes were all being sorted out we sat and had a great chat and it was nice to speak to someone in German in the middle of Kazakhstan 🙂