He hopes to reach Paris in a month and a half to two months and take advantage of the Olympic Games to raise awareness of the bike taxi. Mickael Durette, an entrepreneur from Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), leaves this Tuesday morning, April 16, from the Pink City to the capital on the handlebars of his bike-taxi, while towing his cargo bike-a-vanne, a three-wheeled mini-cargo house. Independent throughout his journey, he hopes to transport tourists during the Olympics in order to raise money to buy land in the Toulouse area on which to build trailers. He also launched a participatory prize pool to support his project.
“I experienced this mode of transport when I was young, during a trip to Vietnam, and I experienced the concept in London and Paris,” says Mickael Durette. As soon as we knew that France was going to host the Olympics, I planned to go shopping between the tourist sites, on the occasion of this event. It's an original way to discover Paris from another angle for families with children, elderly people or couples. »
His journey to Paris must take the Canal du Midi, the Arcachon basin, Royan, La Rochelle then the Loire. The Toulouse resident plans to use departmental roads, rather than cycle paths, which are too narrow for his cargo ship, in which he will sleep. “It has solar panels, which even allows me to have light and a portable television,” he explains. These races in Paris are only the first step in my project which consists of working six months of the year on trailer prototypes and the other six months as a cyclo-nomad. » The adventures of the Toulouse self-entrepreneur can be followed on social networks.