Broken Down in Creel...

The day began auspiciously. I started packing my bike, looked down and noticed that my seat heat was on! DOH! It's hot wired to the battery... I turned it off and tried to start the motor, but a quarter turn and click was all I got.

I wasn't using it yesterday afternoon, so I may have have bumped it on. The good news is that it gave Arno and I an opportunity to meet the hotel owner, Luis. He and his family run the hotel and are very, very gracious. They also were kind enough to give us a jump and spare Arno from having to disassemble his bike to get to his buried battery.

Luis gave Arno and I a neat keychain and Arno printed out this picture for them and they appreciated it immensely, I could tell. That little printer of Arno's is a powerful tool to connect with people. In a society where tips are not the norm, something like that is a great gesture:



We got underway and made Creel in very little time as it was only 30 kilometers away. At the end of town Arno pulled over, turned his bike off and restarted it only to have it die seconds later and no restart!

Hmmm... Fuel, Air, Spark. Could his fuel gauge be wrong? Arno takes out his little spare and pours it in. Notice anything unsafe about this? Hey, no OSHA in Mexico, when in Rome...





Not to worry, I was standing well back...

Nope, still doesn't start.

Out comes the computer for a diagnostic, good thing he carries that tool.



It tells him that there is a fault with the fuel pump circuit. The fault would not clear, so the next step is to disconnect the battery to see if that would clear it. Of course we inspected the fuel pump leads and they were dry despite yesterday's deluge.

While we were standing there Clay, from Austin, TX. pulls up on his little Yamaha enduro. He's headed to Guatemala to start up an internet business selling, of all things, custom boots! Perhaps he'll have a good customer in Arno?



Turns out that Clay is having problems with his bike too. Seems it's burning/ possibly leaking quite a bit of oil. We helped each other out and then we went to the local bar to get internet so that we could start figuring out what to do about Arno's bike. It turns out that it's probably a bad fuel pump, but getting it fixed is going to be a multi-day challenge, especially since it happened on a Saturday and most BMW dealers who have parts aren't open until Tuesday.



Want to know what the ultimate embarrassment for a BMW Adventure rider and master mechanic is? Having to ride on the BACK of Nate's bike!