"Race to the Tour" Offers Contestants an Opportunity to Ride and Blog Along the Route of the Tour de France
Subaru is sponsoring a website called RaceToTheTour.com where they are offering a contest with two chances for the winners to travel to France during this year's Tour de France, ride along with a Trek Travel bike tour, meet the members of the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team, and contribute to their Race to the Tour blog.
This is not just a contest site, it's also a multi-author weblog about the Tour de France. It's getting a lot of feedback from readers already. Here's the comment I made:
I think this contest is one of the most interesting things I've seen any Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team sponsor do to generate some buzz.
There are only a few people out there who know how hard it would be to do justice to the task that the contest organizers are placing before the winners. I blogged from both the Tour de Georgia and the Wachovia Cycling Series this Spring. It would be hard to write interesting stuff for a blog and ride for several hours a day at the same time.
At the Tour de Georgia, I spent 16 or more hours a day interviewing people, traveling between the start and finish of each stage and the hotels, and writing about the race. I didn't even have time to ride my bike during that period.
I wish the winners a lot of luck in the effort to blog the Tour de France. There will be so many stories to cover, whether you choose to focus on the race itself, what goes on behind the scenes, what the spectators do to get to the roadside and entertain themselves during the long wait for the riders, or what you experience as a result of winning the contest.
Ride at your own pace and don't try to be a hero. You can't go from being a spectator to being Thomas Voeckler overnight because they hand you a bike and say "go".
I told Kathleen about this contest on Saturday or Sunday and she said that I should enter it. I entered this morning. If you are interested in getting your shot at blogging the Tour, you should try to enter the contest by 11:59 Eastern Time tonight. They will choose their first of two winners at Midnight.
