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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The winner of this week’s high-stakes summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage may have been a 64-year-old retired fire inspector who went from running errands to riding off into the sunset on a brand-new motorcycle provided by the Russian government.

The news media scrum that has gathered in Anchorage over the war in Ukraine, trade, election interference, and other thorny subjects has another unlikely hero: Mark Warren.

Warren spent 36 years as a fire inspector for the Municipality of Anchorage and told The Associated Press that when a crew from Russia’s Channel One network stopped him to chat on Monday, it was just another day of running errands on his motorcycle. A few years ago, Warren bought a used Ural motorcycle from a neighbor, but it was a struggle to keep it running. Parts for his model were scarce, and demand sometimes exceeded supply.

“I’m really just a super-duper normal guy, and they just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think it’s cool,” Warren said Tuesday in an interview with the AP. The story about his life with his Ural motorcycle went viral in Russia, and “it went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because I’m just a super-duper normal guy.”

In the video, Warren told his story and said that maintaining his Ural was an adventure. But before you go blaming Warren for making bad impressions on the Russians about life in the United States, don’t. Warren said he doesn’t speak or read Russian. In the video, a reporter acted as an interpreter.

He said he heard about the gift after the three-hour Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, during which the two leaders discussed the war in Ukraine before boarding Air Force One and Air Force Two back to Washington and Moscow.

Warren received a call on Aug. 13 from the Russian reporter who had first interviewed him about his Ural motorcycle. “They’ve decided to give you a bike,” he was told. Warren didn’t believe it. People don’t just hand out free motorcycles, let alone ones provided by the government of another nation, he told the AP.

After the Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, the retired fire inspector got another call. This one was from the Russian Embassy in Washington. They told Warren that not only had he been selected for a bike, but it was in Anchorage.

The next day, Warren and his wife arrived at a hotel in Anchorage with little idea of what to expect. In the parking lot, there were six men he assumed were Russian officials and the olive-green Ural Gear Up with a sidecar.

“I dropped my jaw. I went, ‘You’ve got to be joking me,’” Warren said. He said the Russians didn’t ask for much. They just wanted to take his photo, interview him again, and film him riding the motorcycle. Warren agreed. Two reporters and someone from the Russian consulate sat in the sidecar as Warren gingerly circled the parking lot, followed by a cameraman jogging next to him to capture the moment.

Still, Warren had misgivings. He didn’t want to get in the way of a potential “political football,” he said. Accepting a gift from another government, particularly one as politically polarizing as Russia, gave Warren pause. “The only reservation I had is that I might somehow be implicated in some nefarious Russian scheme,” he said.

“I don’t want a bunch of haters coming after me because I got a Russian motorcycle. … I don’t want this for my family,” he added. Warren told the AP he signed no agreements to receive the gift but did sign documents to formally accept ownership of the motorcycle from the Russian Embassy. One document showed the bike was manufactured on Aug. 12. The fact that it was freshly made and flew from Russia to Anchorage with such speed left Warren at a loss for words.

“The obvious thing here is that it rolled off the showroom floor and slid into a jet within probably 24 hours,” Warren said. “I have no idea how long it’s been on the ground here.”

Warren told the AP he will appreciate the gift but noted the motorcycle — valued at $22,000 — is far more than he ever thought he would get from a random interview at a traffic light. In his interview with the AP, Warren said he is relieved by how things played out. He did not sign any agreements with Russian officials or keep any of his original bike, he told the AP. But one detail always stuck out to him.

“They even put a decal on it that I ordered, a little dragon sticker,” he said.