Ici Le Chef C'est Moi: Days off in Arles

August 1, 2015

Honda Goldwing: a Rolls Royce of a motorcycle. This is for my brother-in-law who's passionate about bikes.

In the Intermarche car park you can wash any hour of the day or night.

I was asked to be wedding photographer as the French love my Irish ascent and I'm good craic.

"Bonjour Messeur. Com...." greets the Young lady that works in the café where I'm off to use the wifi as we meet on the street. It is her day off and after adding more, wishes me luck "et bon route!"

The Auberge de Jeanesse here in Arles has a shut out policy during the day from ten in the morning, to five in the afternoon, hence I use a café where the wifi is reliably faster anyway. It is one of those places "Bar-Tabbac" selling coffee, beer, newspapers and lotto-tickets, also being in the centre, they have a restaurant and the outside terrace fills with diners from noon onward. I always sit inside to see the computer screen without squinting. And the young lady always takes my coffee to the table and chats a little in French, while I reply "ah oui, c'est bon..." having got the gist, but not having fully understood.

I have also been getting to grips with bike maintenance. The bottom-bracket I'd fitted in Belgrade has now worn to the point of there being play. Once this happens, the pedalling feels sloppy, rather than smooth. So it's best to change it as soon as possible.

They've this thing called "Hollowtech" chain-wheel-crank and bottom-bracket now on most bikes, and the bottom-bracket part, the bearings which allows it all to turn smoothly, are two bearings that screw in one either side of the frame's bottom-bracket shell, a sturdy cylindrical tube located at the bottom; at the junction of down-tube, seat-tube and chain-stays.

This design makes replacing bearings easier using one spanner made for the job, which I don't have with me; thinking I would save some weight, but making me dependent on finding a bike shop to do it. Anyway I've bought the spanner as I've come to the realisation that it isn't that much weight. Also bought cable cutters as I'm fed-up with being unable to trim gear and brake cable ends.

Monday

I thought I'd get the work on the bike done Saturday before dark, but some people where cooking a barbecue that I's asked to join and it was ready, so I'd to down tools. The other cyclist Heidi was eating. She has cycled from home in Cologne and is on her way to Montpellier to visit an Irish friend, the later part upon the Via Rhona cycle-route which she maintains is being extended as far south as Sete. Also at the table is Vivi, a French matron sitting at my side who doled out slices of watermelon upon a fork from a bowl. When she turned to her side with a melon-slice upon a fork for me, I opened my mouth to receive it like a participant in some middle-ages banquet. That caused her to break into stitches of laughter; which was the intended effect.

Late in the evening when we'd all finished but remained at the table, a new girl joins us. She chatted away in French with the others. This morning I don't recognize her in the corridor, just after coming out of the shower with wet hair, it takes me a minute to see she is the same girl as she smiles and greets me and we chat a little in passing.

In the place reserved for bikes, it takes me all my time finishing off the bike. I'm fed up with my knee knocking against the handlebar end gear-lever when I rise out of the saddle, so decide to trim five centimetres of handlebar off using the hacksaw bought to trim the tent-pole, so the gear-level is well forward out of the way. To do this I've to dismantle the gear-lever in order to unscrew and remover it from the handlebar end. And it comes apart in pieces, which has me worried I may not be able to get it back together and working properly. It would be terrible to be stuck not able to change gear.

There's this spring-steel ring I cannot work out which way it goes when reassembling the gear-lever. The time is going fast, it now being after nine o'clock. Check out is ten. And while I'd planned on leaving today, I've decided to remain another day. I will test ride the bike and see all is working and in order.

With a lot of fiddling as the bits are small, I get the lever back together and re-clamp the gear-cable in the rear-derailleur. It is changing perfectly click, click, click as the chain moves up upon successive sprockets. Now I've to remove the left-hand lever and saw-off the handlebar that side. By quarter to ten things are looking well as I set to winding new cork-tape around the handlebars. Blue to give a dash of contrast with the bicycle's green livery.

It is well after ten when I leave the hostel and I ride round the corner to the commercial centre, thinking the bike shop might be open; then, remember I better shop for food as the Intermarche will be shut in the afternoon. I buy a couple of tubs of couscous, a few veg and water for the day, loading it up in the one pannier I've brought along in the open un-shaded front of the supermarket, where the metal and concrete radiates hot air.

I follow the commercial centre service roads out of town paying more attention to how the bike is riding than which way I'm going. There's a bit of creak from the bottom-bracket, but it feels firm now unlike before. From the final roundabout I'm on D83; it takes me a bit of time finding it on the map until I see it runs east: a good road with a shoulder, though traffic is light.

I am for doing a loop, as further on there's a left turn going north and linking up with D17, the road I's on the day I rode to Arles. I could stop and have a coffee in the same village I did that day. But then I feel the rear wheel a bit soft.

I stop and pump it up, thinking it only needs some pressure, but shortly after riding on it's soft again, so I ride until I come to the first shade, a small hedge by the open gateway into a farm.

I pump but can't get it up hard, rather it is quickly deflating and shortly, the tyre goes fully flat.

I take off the wheel and take out the innertube and pump. It inflates a little and after much pumping, it's clear that the air is leaking through the valve. So I take my spare innertube from the tool pouch and use it.

I'm stopped for nearly an hour fiddling with my pump that I now have for two years and is on it's way out: the rubber-washer inside the barrel comes undone and I've to unscrew it and put it back in it's place every few pump-strokes; during which, the shadow of the hedge affording shade has moved round so I'm sitting burning in the sun by the time I'm putting the rear-wheel back on.

Not having a spare in the event of a further flat wheel I return to town. Then chance it by riding south out of town down D35, riding fifteen kilometres before turning round and discovering, Via Rhona runs parallel, so ride back to town upon the bike-path; stopping at the Vincent Van Goth bridge, where I take a few photos and see on the interpretation board in French something about the artist's letter home in 1888.

I needn't have bothered shopping as this evening there is another barbecue. The sausages I bought yesterday weren't used and they go on and Vivi makes a big bowl of salad.

When we've finished the new girl turns up and I'm glad when she comes over and takes a seat beside me and we chat. She was at Saint Marie de la Mer today, but says she didn't like it. Says when I ask, she's from Lyon and speaks good English because she studied French and English literature at university in England. That was ten years ago so I guest her age is thirty-two. Now works in a priory with Baroc music and in her free time is an actor in a theatre.

Isha. I have to ask how she spells her name. Says it is eastern for Elizabeth.

Sunday afternoon truck stop. Two friends far from home meet up.

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