Glad you posted that...
We rode that train - Sept 2023. Except we missed it at Olette (having stayed in a refuge the night before and somehow got lost on the way down..). We piled all the cars into the van and chased it up the mountain. Just sneaked on and then had a brilliant days riding. Not the route @chipps took by the look of things tho. 
The decent back to Olette was one of the best natural trails I've ever ridden. An ever deepening rock gulley that went on for absolutely ages. There's a point on the GoPro footage where I'm murmuring "trust the Force Luke" 🙂
There's a very long vid of the day, but that descent starts about here:
Watching that makes me want to to back and ride it again. And write up that day as it was such a mad 24 hours from start to finish!
Nice! Didn't realise there was skiing on that part of the Pyrenees. Erroneously street viewed Bolquère, I'd forgotten how talented the French could be at erecting soulless carbuncles.
@Alex You should have shouted, I'm sure I could have shown you a couple of new trails. 🙂
Talking of which, I don't know the upper switchbacky bit you were riding. I guess that's on the north side of the valley, before you get onto the trail that takes you down to Canaveilles and Olette. I'll have to try to track it down! Looks great.
Enjoyed the article, there's a pretty good chance I did some of the descent into Olette with Ian on their Summit to Sea trip back in 2019. I remember it being very janky and a lot of fun!
Yes @fathomer you'll have done much of that trail with Ian. In fact, the way I ride it, Ian's place is only 800m out of the way, so we usually pop in and see if he's around. Did you know that he now brews beer? (Way simpler than guiding folks, I think... :-)) and he's turned his garage into the brewery and the old bar/dining room into a tasting room. It's fab!
You should have shouted, I'm sure I could have shown you a couple of new trails.
That was my plan. It was all a bit last minute, and when we were talking the chaps in the bar (my friend who we visited is an ex-pat living 10 miles from Perpignan knows them well) said you'd headed off on a trip somewhere. We'll be back tho, so next time it would be fab to catch up and ride some new trails.
I have the GPX somewhere if you want me to send a copy. I know we didn't go to the very top of the train line, It was then a 500m climb through that forestry/abandoned tank field before doing athatvery natural descent. I'm not absolutely sure of the legality of it, but it was absolutely deserted, and not that much used.
It's all a bit of a blur that trip. I only wrote up the first day, and it was - as with most things we do with the ex-pat out there - a bit of an adventure 😉 https://www.pickled-hedgehog.com/its-not-a-ride-its-an-adventure/
I enjoyed that read, and the vids, Alex. Cheers. It's been interesting working out where you went and that you stayed in the refuge de Mariailles - you can _almost_ freewheel to our house from there 🙂
I think that's my third time there. Never got a good nights sleep, but I love being out there. Si - ExPat - told us that climb would take "about an hour". I should have checked the map 😉
I'll write up the next day when we missed the train - or what I can remember of it.
Inspired by Chipps' article, I wrote up our day. It's quite long and occasionally sweary.
Had a mail exchange with Chipps and his route is quite different to ours. Definitely will be trying some of the stuff from the article next time we're over tho.
https://www.pickled-hedgehog.com/where-were-going-we-dont-need-roads/
Yeah, all the riders I was with feel the same way. Late Autumn is looking promising... need to make it happen.