Prades-Nohèdes, a pretty relentless hill climb for me

On Saturday 14 May, I decided to test the repairs and upgrading to our son Alex's old hybrid. Various contradictory stickers had been applied to it (British Eagle, Ridgeback and others) when Alex bought it from what might loosely be described as a flea market in Shipley, a converted weaving shed with various stalls selling what might to one person be tat and to another, bric-a-brac and collectibles.  It has a lightweight steel frame but had been restored or tadged up by the vendor and what could one expect for 60 quid? The main problems after Alex's crash, about 3 years ago apart from his broken collar bone) were a broken back axle, a little buckling in the rear wheel, excessive play in the bottom bracket and a badly worn chain ring. I replaced the chain ring, had the bike shop replace the axle and I stripped down and repacked the ball bearings in the bottom bracket. I also set up the front derailleur, using good old YouTube. I have found much helpful guidance on there for woodworking and bike maintenance stuff that I would never have known how to do.

Anyway, we took the old bike into retirement in France for light duty, in case anyone wanted to come along on a bike ride. It was running reasonably well and the low gearing made it very adept at hill climbing. It was originally 14 gears but now 21 and the extra 7 are mainly in the lower register. Unfortunately I had been over-optimistic about the bottom bracket and it soon started to have far too much play and it was clear that the ball bearings had converted from association to rugby and were too far gone. I decided to order a sealed bottom bracket from Shimano (more YouTube help) but it was very hard to measure the overall width. I did my best and posted the required parts to our friends Greg and Barbara, so that I could fit them when we arrived by bike from England. The parts included a new seat post, little had I realised when I bought a better gel saddle that seat posts varied in diameter so much. Over a few days I fitted the new saddle and the bottom bracket, which, fortunately, was the right width. I tested it out on a lovely trip up the valley past St Michel de Cuxa to Taurinya and the El Taller Bistrot de Pays but the rear wheel kept kicking out of alignment and causing the brakes to bind. Over the following couple of days I worked out that the movement of the side pull brake was being fouled by the luggage pannier that Alex had fitted and any use of the rear brake kicked the wheel out of alignment by about 10mm. This would have had a major impact when he braked sharply in the rain. Once I removed the pannier rack it was fine and I wanted to try it on a decent climb.

We have been coming to this part of France for 14 years and had never managed to get right the way up the side valley that goes to Nohèdes and Urbanya. We had cycled up as far as Conat, which has a charming church, about 3 or 4 years ago, but no further. I was on my ancient, heavy, steel Kahlkoff "street bike" on that occasion and it had been a major pull. I made the same trip with Alex in 2014 just before we went up Mt. Canigou.

So I set off, and the road goes up and up and up for 14 kilometres and ascends about 550 metres. I plugged away, stopping for water a couple of times and it took me about an hour and 50 minutes.  Luckily the road was formed to allow a horse and cart to climb up to the village and is perfectly manageable by bike, even or  senior gadget and occasional cyclist like me. Coming down took 25 minutes. There is a nature reserve at the top and Nohèdes is very much in the style of other Pyrenean mountain villages: tightly packed rubble stone houses with fishtail slate roofs, some with the traditional bulge of the projecting oven and quite a lot are clearly holiday houses, but there is a mairie and a seasonal cafe/restaurant and quite a number of people clearly live there. Further up there is a hydroelectric power station and some low ranch-style houses overlooking the valley. There are some old hippies but it is not as alternative as Llugols, further down the valley. A drizzly and grey day but a great afternoon out and I got to find out about the Pyrenean desman, a very rare aquatic mole that lives in this remote part of the mountains.