All children have dreamed of it: building a bicycle that was also a boat; a floating bicycle capable of going from dry land to pond water, with the same momentum. Félix Billey did it five years ago, in parallel with his studies at the National Higher School of Wood Technologies and Industries, in Epinal.
Since then he has traveled the roads of France aboard his curious vehicle: a recumbent bicycle installed inside a wooden kayak. Equipped with wheels full of blades, the machine drags a 2-meter-long mini cabin, made from recycled materials (bamboo, plywood, polystyrene, mats, etc.). Inside: a mattress, a small stove that also serves as a stove, and that’s it. “You can think of it as a bicycle towing a caravan. “I see it more as a house that moves”explains this 30-year-old young man, whose philosophy can be summarized in four words: “I live while I travel. »
Leaving Besançon in 2019, Félix Billey traveled 3,000 kilometers at full speed, through the Jura, the Vosges, Savoy, Switzerland, the Vercors, the Ardèche, the Lozère, the Allier… His cruising speed – 8 kilometers per hour – requires taking small departmental roads or even cycling routes such as the Loire by bicycle. Accompanied by a chicken called Chépa 2 (the first, his mother, Chépa 1, was eaten by a fox in Isère), the traveler has no route plan. It can stay in the same place for a week or change location overnight, heading north or south. Chance is your compass, slowness your horizon, ” freedom [son] drunkenness »said. Without a cent or a credit card, he lives thanks to the generosity of curious people who approach him along the way.
“Leaving with nothing”
“I never ask for anything, it’s an invisible rule”he said that afternoon, not far from the Chaumont-sur-Loire (Loir-et-Cher) pétanque court. The curious offer him what they have in the refrigerator, some a box of pâté, others a jar of jam. Some even invite you to eat at their house or to a restaurant. On lean nights, the egg that Chépa 2 lays almost daily is her only subsistence, when it is not the stale bread intended for the chickens.
“Finding yourself in a situation of lack is an opportunity. We appreciate the “not much” even more.”The solitary walker assures that the carbon footprint is close to zero. No Instagram account even tells of his trip, made much more on asphalt than on water. Just an old phone – with a “Pack of 2 balls, twenty years, what do you pay? [ses] parents “ – still connects him to his previous life.
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