Frédéric and his daughter Mathilde de Lanouvelle start from Place Bellecour in Lyon this Wednesday, August 16th. Together, in tandem, they are preparing to travel some 2,000 km across France. Their journey will form a heart in GPS tracing, a nice symbol for this duo who pedal to finance heart operations for children.
Frédéric and Mathilde will in a few hours set off on the roads of France in tandem.
This father and his daughter have set themselves the challenge of doing their own big loop, a loop that takes the shape of a heart.
A route that is anything but trivial, they are preparing to swallow 2000 kilometers of roads to finance heart operations for children.
With a smile in his voice, Frédéric de Lanouvelle explains the project. “With my daughter Mathilde, who is 16 years old, we are going on a tandem to survey more than 2000 km. We do this for the association heart surgery sponsorship.”
It is an adventure that pursues several objectives. Through their initiative, our cyclists wish to highlight the work of the association. “L’associationexplains Frederic, brought to France children with heart defects. They cannot be treated in their country, for lack of means, skills or equipment. These children are welcomed into families in France, undergo their operations and leave cured..”
Mathilde and Frédéric also want to share with as many people as possible the values of self-transcendence, adventure, solidarity.
The other, more personal motivation for this challenge is for Frédéric to strengthen his filial bond with Mathilde, by creating unique memories.
“I have four daughters, details Frederic, Mathilde is the second. With Cécile, the eldest, when she was 16, we went for the marathon des sables, which is one of the most difficult foot races in the Moroccan Sahara. Two hundred and fifty kilometers on foot, in self-sufficiency, so we spent a week in this desert, and already, there was the surpassing of oneself and the discovery of wide open spaces.
For Mathilde, who is not very keen on running, Frédéric opted for cycling. “It was she who told me, “I would like to live a great adventure with you, like the one you lived with Cécile for my 16th birthday.”
The route planned for the tandem journey. • © Cardiac Surgery Sponsorship
The idea of the heart came thanks to the association and, icing on the cake, there is a record to beat. “If we manage to trace this heart and we come back with a GPS trace that is in the shape of a heart, we set the record for the largest GPS drawing on a team bike. We will enter the record books. “
All the ingredients are there to make this journey a moment of sharing. “The advantage of the tandem is that when it’s hard, the other can help, compensate. The stronger can help the weaker” said Frederic.
“We had already toured Île-de-France in tandem with my daughter, 550 km in four days. And I realized it, you can have great days of cycling, even with a girl who is not necessarily very old, because she was younger at the time.”
First, Frédéric created the course using software, looking at the map of France, in order to obtain the most beautiful heart possible. The route is divided into 15 stages of approximately 150 km each.“I did not plan the beds, announces the father of the family. We will have to find a place to sleep at the end of each stage. There are steps that are easier than others. We can try to get a little ahead on the days when we will be in good shape because the last 5 stages, from the Dordogne, are very hilly, then we cross the whole Massif Central, so it will be big days… if we manage to get a little ahead, it’s better.”
“It’s physically very engaging as a challenge. To withstand the shock, you have to look for the positive. In the end, you only keep the best.”
“We have a sleeping bag and a budget that can allow us to sleep dry in a hotel or an Airbnb if necessary. But there are certain stages that end a bit nowhere. So if we have to spend one or two nights under the stars, we will do it with great pleasure.”
The start is scheduled for Lyon, Place Bellecour, Wednesday morning around 6:30 a.m., and as the route forms a heart, it will end at the same place 15 days later, on August 30. Mathilde and Frédéric will cross 26 departments and a few large cities, including Bourg-en-Bresse, Lons-le-Saunier, Besançon, Auxerre, Bourges, Le Mans, Angers, Niort, Angoulême, Périgueux, Albi, Mende, Saint-Étienne, municipalities that will not necessarily be stopover towns.
To be able to carry out this circuit, Frédéric and his daughter found partners via social networks, in particular Linkedin.
The partners finance the organization, but Frédéric specifies “I asked the partners from the start to give as much as they give us to the association heart surgery sponsorship. And since the partners are rather generous, they give more to the association!“
The online kitty (donations are 60% tax-free) has just exceeded €15,000. The average cost of caring for a child is €12,000. “We are very happy to be at €15,000 because it already means that we have saved at least one child. Our current target is €24,000, to manage to save two, and if people are generous, we will not hesitate to raise the target to €36,000.”concludes Frederic.
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