The Cannondale Trip de France

Allow me to brag for a moment. When I visit other sites and blogs around the interwebs, I look at the comments left by readers. Some of my favorite sites are read by people who, sheesh, there’s no diplomatic way to say this: Some of their readers suffer from stolen brains.

No, that’s not the bragging part. This is: RKP enjoys the distinct windfall of benefitting from an especially bright readership. I’m not entirely sure how that happened, but thank you.

So peloton magazine has joined forces with Cannondale to send some lucky reader to this year’s Tour de France. For a week. Now, the lucky (this time I’m using the term in a faux ironic way, kinda like a fixie kid with a handlebar mustache) winner will allegedly work as a mechanic for a week. Let me tell you: That’s no picnic, so I’m really hoping that’s not how this plays out.

The chance to enter has come and gone, so unless you’ve already sent a video, you’re SOL. So here’s what I’m thinking: Your judgement could sway this thing and prevent some sort of American Idol outcome.

That anyone would produce a video to enter a contest impresses me. Maybe that’s just because I’m fairly remedial when it comes to moving pictures; regardless, I like the ambition. And having looked at the finalists, I do think there’s a real standout among them.

I gain exactly zero net benefit from plugging this contest. As I mentioned, I like that people went to the trouble to produce videos for their entry (rather than writing down their name on a slip of paper 437 times) and in the cases of the finalists, told some personal and interesting stories. If nothing else, each of the entries deserves an audience.

Check them out here.