For the third year running, Café du Cycliste hosted an event during La Semaine du Cerveau ("Brain Week"), which is organised by national academic and research institutions alongside the University of the Côte d’Azur. The idea is simple: bring science to where people naturally gather – into a living space, over a drink. Last year Alexia Barrier and Adrien Liechti spoke to us about sleep; two years earlier Guillaume Néry took us on a deep dive into the heart of the brain. This time around, the theme was fear – and Yannis Pelé captivated us with an extraordinary story.

Yannis Pelé: falling down, getting up again, riding stronger than before
Yannis’s story begins in the mountains. Raised in Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage in the Mercantour, he discovered downhill mountain biking as a teenager and progressed at an incredible pace: at 17 he entered the Junior World Cup circuit and quickly found himself in the top 20. The trajectory was promising, the future bright. Then everything stopped in a fraction of a second. During a course inspection, he jumped, landed on his head, and felt his legs fall away to the side without being able to stop them. The diagnosis: vertebral fractures, damage to the spinal cord, paraplegia. Chances of walking again: extremely slim. What's striking in Yannis’s story is his complete absence of doubt. From the moment he was in hospital, he vowed: “I will walk again.” No plan B, no alternative considered. Advised by freediving champion Guillaume Néry and mountain biker Fabien Barel, he established a daily mental routine, three times a day: breathing exercises, visualising himself moving on his bike, repeatedly writing down his personal mantra and precise mental imagery of his brain sending energy down his spine all the way to his toes. The medical team urged him to slow down. He continued. He refused to learn how to use a wheelchair. In the evenings he continued his rehabilitation alone in his hospital room, convinced that every minute counted. Results followed: first steps after three months; walking without crutches after six months; back on the bike a year and a half later. Five years of intensive rehabilitation later, he rides, makes films and shares his story at festivals and in hospitals. His documentary, available online, tells the story. Researchers have since studied his case and confirmed that his mental practice activated additional areas of the brain, accelerating his recovery. The logic is simple: the brain is in control of movement. Visualising that movement – from its origin to its final outcome – is already a form of training.

Fear in the laboratory
Sébastian Fernandez, a biologist at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology in Sophia Antipolis, brought a scientific perspective. With disarming honesty – “I’ve been afraid of this talk for two months” – he began by distinguishing between two notions that are often confused. Fear is an immediate and intense response to a real, present threat. Anxiety is a prolonged state of alert in response to something anticipated or uncertain. Different mechanisms in the brain, different effects on the body. At the centre of it all is the amygdala, a small brain region that receives sensory information, evaluates the level of danger, and triggers defensive responses – the famous fight or flight. Fast, instinctive. The more measured and slow-acting prefrontal cortex comes afterwards to refine the response using logic and past experience. It’s what makes the difference between total panic and a controlled reaction. One particularly striking discovery: the body also speaks to the brain. A 2023 study showed that artificially increasing the heart rate – even without any real threat – is enough to activate fear circuits. In other words, if your heart starts racing, your brain concludes that there must be danger. This is where breathing becomes a practical tool: we cannot directly control our heart rate, but we can control our breathing, and that calms the entire chain reaction. Exactly what Yannis practised with his daily exercises. Fear is not an enemy either. Experienced in the right dose, it releases dopamine and endorphins once the moment has passed, which explains why thrill-seeking sports can be so addictive. Two factors influence our relationship with fear: a degree of genetics, and above all our past experiences, which gradually shape our tolerance for risk.

The evening's big take-away of the evening was that body and mind are inseparable. To visualise a movement is already to train it. To believe in one’s recovery is to accelerate the process. To learn to breathe is to regain control of one’s emotions, even in the most intense moments. Fear will never disappear – and that is a good thing. But learning to tame it, to turn it into fuel rather than a brake, is a skill that anyone can develop. On a bike, as in life. Watch the talk here.