Frédéric de Lanouvelle and his daughter Mathilde, 16, set themselves a challenge to raise funds for the children cared for by the association Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiaque. They will try to make a heart-shaped GPS track of more than 2000km by bike in France. If successful, the drawing could even enter the record books. They pass through Burgundy and will be in Auxerre and Yonne this Saturday August 19th.
Leaving Lyon on Wednesday August 16, they arrived in Mussy-sur-Seine (Côte-d’Or) on Friday August 18, Mathilde and Frédéric de Lanouvelle had already covered 450 kilometers in 3 days, a good start before covering the 1700 km remaining for the challenge.
Frédéric de Lanouvelle details the rest of the itinerary: “Saturday, the idea is to cross Auxerre, then go down to Bourges, which will be the tip of the heart at the top, then we go up: Le Mans, Angers, Niort, Angoulême, Périgueux, Albi, Cahors, and then we goes back to the Massif Central, Mende, Saint-Etienne and back to Lyon on August 30. We will have achieved this heart in France.”
The association benefiting from this challenge (an online kitty is open: https://relaisducoeur.mecenat-cardiaque.org/projects/un-coeur-gros-comme-ca-i052a) East Cardiac Surgery Sponsorshipwhich treats children with heart defects, who live in countries where there is not necessarily the possibility of treating them.
Frédéric de Lanouvelle explains: “These children are welcomed in France in families, and go back home after the operation. It is an association which has already saved thousands of children. For the moment we have exceeded 16,000 euros of collection. The cost means of care for a child is 12,000 euros, we would like to reach at least 24,000 euros in collection to take care of two children.
The journey is divided into 15 stages of around 150 kilometers through 26 departments to trace a giant heart, a symbolic GPS track, but Frédéric de Lanouvelle fears the last stages “The last 5 are very hard, it’s the Dordogne and the Massif Central, we’re going to suffer!”
Frédéric de Lanouvelle is a regular in adventure and the great outdoors, this former journalist (BFM TV and TF1) affirms that these themes and surpassing oneself have always “made him vibrate”: “I am happy to transmit these values to my four daughters. Mathilde is my second, I had already taken her older sister a year and a half ago to do the Marathon des Sables, she was 16 years old. For me it is a tool to cement our relationship which is extraordinary!”
Leaving to cover 2000 kilometers on a bike cannot be improvised. Especially since the itinerary must reproduce the design of a heart, an idea already in Frédéric’s mind: “I had traced this heart on a map of France a year, a year and a half ago, for a project that could not be realized. When I saw that there was a record to beat, there were French people who had made the biggest GPS drawing on a bike as a team, they had made a dinosaur of 1025 km. I said to myself, I have my heart, I have the drawing, I have to do this in tandem with Mathilde!”
For now, according to Frédéric Lanouvelle, the start of the journey “It’s going well! I’ve been preparing for this for months, it turns out that we did 3 stages which went really well. We were lent the bike by the association du tandem club rhodanien, an association Lyonnaise who makes tandem rides for visually impaired people. It’s a road tandem, which is going really well!”
Regarding the physical preparation of cyclists, Frédéric concedes that it is “more prepared” than his daughter. “I do sports, I run a lot and I cycle and my daughter is quite athletic, she has the ardor of youth. We did a few 100km outings and it was going well. For her, there is also the dimension of the ‘Guinness World Record entry’.
For the validation of the record of the largest GPS drawing on a bicycle, the Guinness Book gave specific recommendations: “it’s a bit demanding, you have to have witnesses sign everywhere”explains Frederic. “You need a single GPS file. We have three GPS: one that ‘plays’ in the morning and ‘stop’ every evening, that gives us our stage for the day. We have two (one in case of emergency) to total : we did ‘play’ the first day but every evening we take a ‘break’ to resume later. The objective is to ‘stop’ when we arrive in Lyon to have a GPS file which will be proof of the record: the heart has to be visible. Afterwards, I have to bring all the proof that I didn’t cheat, by having witnesses sign, you have to keep all the receipts etc…”
Frédéric, who with his daughter Mathilde are only at the start of the route, fear the stages in Périgord and the Gorges du Tarn, the last 5 of the route: “we are going to suffer, because of the elevation and the heat.”
The arrival is scheduled in Lyon on August 30 to complete the route and therefore the GPS drawing, possibly on August 31 if the route becomes more difficult.
Other future projects animate Frédéric de Lanouvelle, he wishes to take his two other daughters (he has 4 in all) for “16-year-old challenges”, “if they want to” he assures.
#father #daughter #cycle #Tour #Coeur #good
