François Gabart on wood, carbon and the case for dreaming

Disclosure: François Gabart is a minority shareholder in Ateliers Gonelle and owns one of their bikes. He says so himself in the episode. This conversation is not sponsored content and no payment was made.

Three years around the world, paced by cyclone seasons

The voyage began in Scandinavia — Ireland, Scotland, Norway — before an Atlantic crossing to the Caribbean, Panama and then across the Pacific. The rest is sketched in broad strokes: French Polynesia, New Zealand during the southern summer, the Torres Strait, Indonesia, the Indian Ocean, South Africa, then back up the Atlantic. A schedule set by cyclone seasons, but deliberately flexible.

For the record-breaker, it’s a whole new relationship with time. Racing around the world means going as fast as possible; travelling as a family means staying wherever you feel good. It’s also a family pattern: as a child, he spent a year living on a boat with his parents and two sisters.

Bike travel: incredibly accessible

Leaving Stavanger, Norway, the family took on board a young couple of bike tourers who were hitchhiking by boat. They had set off by bike four months earlier, through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Norway — and ended up doing the whole Atlantic crossing with them, with seven bikes on board. It convinced the sailor that you don’t need to be an elite athlete riding at 50 km/h to travel by bike, and that France and Europe are an incredible playground for bike touring, especially on gravel.

Love at first sight at the Roc d’Azur

In autumn 2024, he took his eldest son, a keen enduro and downhill rider, to the Roc d’Azur. On one stand, he discovered Ateliers Gonelle’s wooden bikes — and simply fell for them, finding them beautiful. The founders partly came from the marine industry, and the conversation turned to sandwich construction, bio-composites and flax fibre. A few months later, when the young company raised funds to structure its production, he invested an almost symbolic sum of a few thousand euros.

He isn’t after performance: what he wants is a comfortable bike. Wood, which absorbs vibration, and local species such as poplar, ash and Paulownia meet that need — with the added benefit of frames made in France, through short supply chains. The model he has on board, an Embrun, is sold as a frame kit for €3,700 at 2.2 kg. His love of wood runs deep: his first Optimist dinghy, in plywood, was built by his father.

Carbon: extraordinary material, oil-based product

Few people are better placed to talk about carbon. The Ultim trimarans he sailed are 32 metres long and 23 metres wide, yet weigh less than his wooden home, and reach over 50 knots — close to 100 km/h. Without carbon, boats flying on foils would probably not exist. But he insists on a reminder: carbon is petrochemistry — it’s oil.

Recycling remains a headache. Grinding composite to reinject it into other materials degrades its properties each time: it isn’t truly circular. At Merconcept, his offshore racing company, they reuse carbon offcuts (even in eyewear temples with Julbo) and prepreg carbon too old for aerospace. His line is clear: don’t throw it away, don’t bury it, use it. In the IMOCA class, life-cycle analyses now require each new boat to cut its impact by 20% compared with the previous one.

Antoine draws a parallel with mountain biking: at the Loudenvielle downhill World Cup, brands working with aluminium, such as Commencal, evolve their frames far faster than those tied to expensive carbon moulds.

Technology won’t solve everything

An engineer by training, François Gabart champions research but rejects blind faith in it: technology alone won’t solve everything. We also need to question how we use things — and ask whether we really need to be that light. On a bike as on a boat, speed often comes at the cost of comfort, and stiff carbon also acts as a sound box.

In praise of dreaming

The conversation ends on what has driven him since childhood. To him, dreaming is nothing to be dismissive about: it’s what drives action. Proof of it is Vela, the 100% sail-powered freight company he founded, whose trimaran is set to carry over 500 tonnes of goods between Europe and the United States. He proudly stands up for dreaming — including dreaming of a society where people ride bikes every day.

And for a future episode, he suggests two cycling sailors, Franck Cammas and Tom Laperche — and, for his son, Fabio Wibmer.

Episode in French. Thanks to Ateliers Gonelle for making this conversation possible. Don’t miss an episode — subscribe to the En Roue Libre newsletter.