They rode until exhaustion to take up the sporting and solidarity challenge they had set themselves for the benefit of The Cardiac Surgery Sponsorship ociation : draw a giant heart on the scale of the map of France with the only tools an old tandem and a GPS.
Leaving from Place Bellecour in Lyon, in the Rhône, on August 16 in the early morning, Frédéric de Lanouvelle and his 16-year-old daughter Mathilde traveled a total of 2,156 km, or more than 150 terminals each day. “We had already had a tandem experience. We had toured the Ile-de-France. »
Father of four daughters, this former journalist and spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior wishes to experience an extraordinary sporting adventure with each of them. For Cécile, the eldest, it was the Marathon des Sables. For Mathilde, the second, Frédéric imagined this extraordinary challenge: “This trip was the opportunity to experience something fabulous together”, confides the interested party.
The hope of integrating the Guinness World Records
A trip that was marked by the heat wave and a mechanical glitch that almost shattered their dream: “40 km from Blois, a spoke broke and got caught in the chain of the tandem, causing great damage. Fortunately, thanks to the solidarity of the people, we managed to repair in record time. »
Extraordinary encounters, fabulous landscapes, Frédéric and Mathilde de Lanouvelle were amazed: “When we relive the film of the trip – the forests of the Jura, the Larzac plateau, the vineyards of Chablis, the landscapes of the Mif central – we still have trouble realizing it,” says Frédéric.
Returning to Lyon on August 30, the two adventurers want to have their feat entered in the Guinness Book of Records. They are also well on the way to achieving the objective set: to raise 24,000 euros for the benefit of Mécénat Chirurgie Cardiac. “Thanks to this money, two sick children will be welcomed in France and operated on the heart. That’s great ! »