The newsletter that makes you love bike travel
My name is Emmanuel, I'm 24 years old, I'm an engineer by training, and I created Hexplo with Augustin Gervaise in 2021. Hexplo is a bike trip planner that allows anyone to easily organize their own trip. On the app, you enter your starting point and your destination, and Hexplo helps you organize your entire trip: the best routes, whether paved or off-road, places to sleep (hotels, campsites, couch surfing, bivouacs), places to park your bike, bike repair shops, and more. And, of course, places to visit, such as the most beautiful villages in France, for example! Hexplo also allows you to plan each day in detail, with a precise overview of the number of kilometers and scheduled stops. In short, we are really the Waze of cycling, and what's more, we are now 100% free!
I remember going to the Bois de Boulogne with my father when I was six years old. Later, I mainly used it to get to my leisure activities: music lessons, tennis... Above all, I remember that I had quite a few bikes stolen because I never locked them up properly!
It was 2018. We set off with some friends to cycle from La Rochelle to Bayonne, following the entire Basque coast on the Vélodyssée cycle route. It was a real adventure—we had no idea where we were going and we had lots of mishaps. We ended up sleeping in a field at 2:00 a.m. There were a lot of unexpected events, but that's exactly what turned this trip into an adventure.
Yes! It was such a thrill to get around using my own two legs. It's amazing to see the landscape that way, to sleep somewhere different every night. My second trip was an incredible physical challenge: I went from Amsterdam to Paris in a week. I started to think that anything was possible on a bike... Three months later, I set off again for Burgundy. I had already launched Hexplo, but at the time, I wanted to take people on trips in 4x4s. I had been away for four days with some friends and suddenly we said to ourselves: "OK, tonight we'll sleep at someone's house and if no one opens the door, too bad, we'll just keep going."
On the very first evening, a winegrower welcomed us. And we stayed to help with the grape harvest for two weeks. It was an incredible change of scenery, even though I was only 200 km from Paris. I realized that the change of scenery was more about the surprise of meeting new people than a culture shock. So I changed my plans: I decided to take people on bike trips around France.
The change of scenery as we think of it today is an illusion. Because it's not so much the external environment that brings you that, but rather the inner world you discover when you open yourself up to others, even if it's only 15 minutes from home.A change of scenery is first and foremost about stepping outside your comfort zone. That's the thirst I now seek when I travel.
I think we're all looking for some kind ofconfrontation with the elements. As we speak, I'm on a bike expedition with Augustin Gervaise, with whom I co-founded Hexplo. And in the lodge where we slept last night, there was a book about happiness, in which I read this quote: "The most harmful and dangerous feeling in humans is fear."Today, we make everything safe,we limit all forms of constraint, we lose our ability to improvise.
Cycling allows you to let go. And I find that it builds confidence. That's actually the whole reason behind Explo: to help people overcome their fear of doing crazy things. I believe that everyone needs to rediscover their inner adventurer.Because that's what makes us feel alive.
Three things. First, seeing the sparkle in people's eyes when we talk to them about Explo. Second, having created this community of travel enthusiasts who share ideas and help each other out. The fact that our project means so much to people and contributes to their happiness helps us a lot, because entrepreneurship is difficult and uncertain. It's an extremely powerful driving force: without it, I would have given up long ago!
And my greatest source of pride is that Augustin, my business partner, has also been bitten by the cycling bug. When we met, it was a real "match." We immediately admired each other. Today, I love our partnership. We have such transparency! Sometimes I feel like we're in a romantic relationship. You learn to say things that aren't easy, and sometimes it's really not fun, but you come out stronger every time.
Yes, there's this misconception that you have to be very athletic. That's not true. I ride 50 km a day, and I love stopping, chatting with people, taking cigarette breaks... Anyone can go cycling. If you're really not comfortable, you don't cycle much, you choose flat routes. You can go on a cycling trip without knowing how to pitch a tent. It's not rocket science. It's better if you don't know everything, otherwise it's boring!
I travel light. A luggage rack, a sleeping bag, a groundsheet, a tent, and a tent peg, the ultra-practical accessory for securing all your belongings! I take my computer and fit three T-shirts, a pair of socks, and a pair of pants into my panniers ;-).
I believe my role is to promote bicycle travel and break down barriers to entry, so that people are no longer afraid to travel by bike and can get help planning their trip. We designed Hexplo to be an intuitive tool that centralizes everything, but also as a community where people can exchange advice and help, and even share addresses of private homes where they can stay.
In the 1970s, tourism meant traveling far away AND by plane. It became mass tourism. Obviously, it's easier to go where people have already been, but everyone always ended up in the same place. And this kind of tourism completely distorts the nature of the places visited. In recent years, there has been a noticeable desire to favor more intimate travel experiences. And after Covid, there has been a huge increase in climate awareness, which has prompted people to travel less far. Recently, adventure tourism has been making a real breakthrough. People are looking for exciting experiences, to get away from their everyday lives and not just laze around on the beach. In 50 years, traveling by bike will be one of the most popular modes of travel. My dream is that the emoji associated with travel will no longer be an airplane, but a bicycle.
They're absolutely right! It's clearly a market with a bright future. But above all, I would say that it's essential to find meaning before getting started, not just to think about business. The project has to really inspire them, touch them personally, even make them feel that they are going to contribute to making people happy. That's the case for us with Hexplo, and it's a very powerful driving force. And then, the right mindset for entrepreneurship, even if it's still early days for me: be stubborn and extremely humble, ask for lots of advice, and question yourself. There will always be people who will make you want to give up, who will tell you that your product is worthless, that it's no good. If you absolutely want to succeed, if you have the drive to change things, if your mission is bigger than just meeting a need, it won't affect you.
Music for turns:“The living is easy” by The Guts, because it’s very chill and I like the lyrics.
Music for downhill runs:Kid Francescoli, live from Nopalitos, because it gives you energy.
Music for climbs:Children, Undercat remix, by Robert Miles, because it's furious music and it puts you in "warrior" mode in your head.
A book for setting off on an adventure:“La horde du contrevent” (The Windwalkers)by Alain Damasio, because I love his description of adventure: everyone has their own talent, but we all move forward together, and community comes first.