In the spirit of the holiday season we felt like holding a fun cycling-related giveaway and thanks to Groupon we have a £200 voucher up for grabs for one lucky London Cyclist reader. Groupon is a fast growing daily deal website that offers significant savings on a wide range of products and services. You can find deals on almost everything from leisure sports to restaurants to domestic and international travel. Groupon also has got a ton of cool gift ideas for this time of the year so the timing of the voucher is perfect!
Our usual competition rules apply. The only thing that’s different is I’ll be testing Punchtab to run the competition. I’ve been playing around with it and it seems to be a good way of letting people enter in any way they prefer. To enter simply follow the instructions below:
(Note: If you are reading this in your RSS feed you’ll need to visit the site to see the entry form!)
Also – thank god it’s Friday! And for this weeks “Comment Friday” I’d like to open up the comments to which rides you are dreaming of completing next year. I’ll start things off:
- Dunwich Dynamo – I’ve had a years absence from this and I can’t wait to ride it again.
- Tweed Run – I’ve never been along to one of these jolly good rides and I’ve got a feeling I’m missing out.
- Another big ride abroad – this year I followed the River Rhine. In 2012, I’d like to do a similar trip.
For more inspiration on great rides see our post on 10 events you shouldn’t miss out on. Last entry for the competition will be on Thursday, December 15th at 10pm. I’ll announce the winner shortly after on this blog post.
Out of 136 entries we’ve randomly selected Liz Almond (number 26). Congratulations to Liz and thanks to everyone for taking part! I’ve emailed Liz and if I don’t receive a reply in a reasonable time then we’ll be pulling out another random number.
Dunwich Dynamo
Critical Mass
World Naked Bike Ride
anything Bikeminded
I did the naked ride last year – so much fun and so surreal to be pedalling naked past big ben!
Possibly doing a charity ride taking in company offices – London, Oxford and Edinburgh. We also have a Jersey office – not sure how we’re going to include that one.
Starting with my newly restored 1960 Pat Hanlon I’ll be doing the Hereford V-CC Anniversary Run in January, then throughout the year I’ll be building up to doing the London to Paris Ride for Macmillan Cancer Care in August. But on my beautiful celeste green C2C Bianchi!
I’ll be hitting the Dunwich Dynamo again – last year was my first time, and it was brilliant.
London-Brighton’s also on the cards, hopefully with a 6am start to beat the crowds…
And I’ll be riding from London to Paris with a few mates in May too.
I’d love to ride from London to Berlin, but can’t find anyone willing to saddle up for the long haul. Shame.
You say 6am now but on the day you’ll hit the alarm clock and sleep in! (Or maybe that’s just me!)
Managed to get up for it last year – it’s quite odd riding through London with only other Lycra-clad champions for company!
Friend and I tandeming from John O’Groates to Land’s End. Hoping to do it in about 2 weeks or so… Was thinking of maybe using web to try and find local cyclists to meet up with/recommend best way to go from A to B in their area.
Haven’t signed up for any organised rides yet, I saw the naked bike ride last year – surreal. def considering it!
Wow – this sounds awesome – let me know when you guys are close to getting started – would love to do a write up about it.
Firstly thanks for your informative newsletters!
I am hoping to do the following rides in 2012;
Black Horse Charity ride
King of the Downs
Evans ride Dorking
Ibbo Cake Quest ride – when a date is given!
Cycling Weekly ride, South east
Evans ride Biggin Hill
To ride the Olympic 2012 route……..after the Olympians have gone through!!
What a year to look forard to!!
Please enter me into the competition, I am going to need a decent pair of shorts and some saddle sore cream!
Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!
Diva100 – I did 50k of the ride this year as a challenge post getting knocked off my bike last December and it kickstarted my brain into recovering from PTS. Like this year I intend riding it on my singlespeed again.
GRIM duathlon – I just need a mountain bike!!
They’re the one’s planned at the moment!
I’d like to do something specific for foldies. Is there anything like that?
There’s the Brompton World Championship at Blenheim Palace if you have a Brompton
http://www.bikeblenheimpalace.com/the-brompton-world-championships.html
Love how there’s so much of a culture around the Brompton. Be cool to head along to the race.
London Nocturne has a folding bike race too:
http://www.londonnocturne.com/
Nightrider, London to Brighton and there’s talk of doing London to Paris.
Already registered and training for the London to Paris 24
I’m hoping to do a part of the North Sea Cycle Route, and possibly the Dunwich Dynamo, if I’m in London that weekend.
I’m signed up to do Lands End to John O’Groats in July 2012. To train for that I’ll do several long rides on weekends when the weather gets more bearable again.
Did my first dun run this year, would like to do it again, it was a great experience!
Would also like to get along to a tweed ride and am considering the three peaks cyclocross challenge….
Was thinking of taking the ferry from Harwich to Esbjerg in Denmark and then moseying along on down Denmark through Germany and onto a port which could take me back to England In Holland (see what all the fuss about their cycling infrastructure is about). A Tweed run is also on the cards…
My son and I got a Circe Helios Tandem last month. So our plan for next year is to get fit enough (me 50, him 9) to do a 4 day ride .
Current plan is to get the train from home to Kings Lynn and then cycle back staying in B&Bs or cheap hotels over the 4 days. Not trying to do too many miles. Enough to make it an adventure and see things. Route will be along National Cycle Paths plus some finding our own way between Cambridge and Hitchen.
The sorts of things I’d never have dreamed of when I was 9 and I hope something Freddy will enjoy and remember for a long time. In the meantime, we are clocking up the miles on the cycle paths in Hertfordshire.
Our plans for 2012 include a week cycle touring in London in all its Olympic Glory and a month or so family touring in Iceland. Should be quite contrasting experiences!
The big one I guess is Le Mans Velo 24 hour solo. Should be fun riding such a famous course!!
I’m planning a long distance 3 or 4 day mountain bike route in Scotland. Either, Glasgow – West Highland Way To Ft William – Great Glen Way to Inverness or Scottish Coast to Coast. I did Ft William to Inverness and Bonar Bridge to Ullapool last year in a day each. They were both brilliant rides and looking forward to a great challenge next year.
I’m hoping to do the Tweed Run next year, and maybe join one of the Critical Mass rides. I only really started riding regularly this year, and they both sound like easy, friendly rides for a beginner. Now I just need to find someone to come with me – none of my friends cycle!
will do london to swindon with my mate for a day.. i might
be a hard one for us as we’re newbies on road cycling.. 🙂
Im doing London To Paris next year for Macmillan, probably London To Brighton or London To Southend for a change, also keeping up my training by riding the Pedicab to raise as much cash as I can, will be blogging that right up until July hopefully.
Might also try and arrange a few rides via meetup.com
Good points, eclisealpy on gender and time disparity. On the class/cyclist issue, I think those are actually three distinct groups of cyclists who have different needs and do it for different reasons. The ones biking in the city who want to ride are the yuppie types I was referring to who are biking as a lifestyle choice. The day laborers are more likely captive users who would probably rather be driving a BMW but can’t afford one and the roadies are probably recreational cyclists who ride 40 miles on the weekend outside of the city. They’re not all just cyclists . The ones that have historically gotten the most attention are the recreational cyclists on the $3000 bikes. The ones who are now getting all the attention are the urban yuppies (eg, why are all of New York’s bike lanes in Park Slope and lower Manhattan?). The needs of captive users are often overlooked, is my guess.
I’ll be going cycling on the towpaths with my better half, who hasn’t been on a bike in twenty years. It’s taken me 13 years to persuade/entice her back on to the saddle.
going to be doing some work in South America and the US next year so will be packing my folder and seeing some different cycling culture.
would love to do a trip around the vineyards of Alsace too in the autumn, big hills and fantastic food i hear….
Hi Andreas,
I will personally have nothing to do with Groupon. Everyone who has got involved with them wishes they hadn’t. They take too much off of the participant, leaving such a low percentage to the participant that they lose money. They are not a good idea for traders at all.
‘Everyone’ – really? I’d say that was a pretty wild generalisation. But i’m sure you can back it up with exhaustive research…
Everyone who I have spoke with who has dealt with them I should’ve said. Also one of the qualities (Nwsp’s) can’t remember which one? Recently ran a damning piece on them relating to several traders/businesses who do indeed wish they never got involved. Citing the unprofitable percentages given back to them.
Of course there have been some unfortunate failures but I suspect they’re more down to the retailer’s short sightedness and poor planning than Groupon’s business model. For every disaster story there’s several less publicised success stories. As someone who has taken advantage of several Groupon deals I can only see benefits to both parties if used properly and with forethought. And no, I don’t work for Groupon 🙂
Hi Nigel – I respect that and thank you for posting your opinions. I do hope that you’ll find other competitions more suitable.
For a cake munching community, some of us anyway, this might be of interest as an example of Groupon going wrong:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8904653/Groupon-demand-almost-finishes-cupcake-maker.html
oooopsss..