Charity and Contests from Yakima, Road ID, Discounted Cycling

Road ID is hosting a “Fantasy Cycling” contest where you can guess the winner of each stage of the Tour of California.  Guess right and they’ll dole out $1,000 ($750 to a cycling related charity, and $250 right to your wallet).

Yakima is throwing some racks on Zipcar vehicles in the Boston area.  Six specially wrapped vehicles will be rented at a reduced rate with a portion of the rental fee going to support the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, an annual bike-a-thon raising funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Jimmy Fund.

DiscountedCycling.com, an online retailer based in TN, is donating a portion of sales from select bike racks to flood relief efforts.

Links and full press releases after the break…

ROAD ID CHARITY CHALLENGE:

Road ID is running their Charity Challenge once again, this time at the Tour of California, and the prizes are off the charts. “Fantasy cycling” doesn’t have millions of participants like baseball or football, but choosing winners has never helped so many people.

For each day of the race, fans have the opportunity to guess who they think will win and each stage pays out $1,000 — $250 to the winner*, and $750 to twelve of cycling’s favorite charities, including:

USA Cycling Development Foundation
YieldToLife.org
Wounded Warrior Project
Arthritis Foundation
ASPCA
LIVESTRONG
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
National MS Society
Susan G. Komen
Levi Leipheimer’s Gran Fondo Charities
The Davis Phinney Foundation
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Better yet, each entry affords participants the chance to win two Grand Prizes: a trip to Paris for the final weekend of the greatest bike race on earth, courtesy of Trek Travel, and a pair of Hed Ardennes wheels with the phenomenally light and stiff C2 rims. You don’t have to guess correctly to get an entry for the Grand Prizes; participants can also get one Grand Prize entry for every two dollars donated to the charities between 5/12/10 and 5/23/10.

Participants can enter to play each day of the Tour of California, though only once per day. To enter, simply visit www.RoadID.com/Winner each day to make your pick. Daily winners will be posted on the contest page and announced via Facebook and Twitter.

*If multiple people supply the correct answer on any given stage, the tiebreaker will be determined by random drawing. If nobody correctly predicts the stage winner on a given day, the $1000 will be added to the following stage, making that stage worth $2000. All predictions (no matter how bad), will earn one entry to the Grand Prize drawing.

Yakima Racks and Zipcars in Boston Area Support Pan-Mass Challenge

Yakima, an innovator in vehicle racks for boats, bikes, camping and winter sports gear, today announced its partnership with Zipcar, the world’s largest car sharing provider, in its initiative to support the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge (PMC), the annual bike-a-thon raising funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Jimmy Fund. Yakima has installed custom base systems and bike racks on six specially wrapped 2010 Kia Soul Zipcars throughout Boston, which will have reduced rates of $8.00 per hour.  Two dollars of every reservation of those racked vehicles will support the PMC now through August 8, 2010. These cars will be utilized as support vehicles for individuals riding in the event.  After the event, the racks will remain on those cars when they return to service in the Boston fleet.

All of the cars equipped with Yakima’s bike racks are wrapped with a special design based on the 2010 PMC race jersey. Specifically, cars will be available in Allston, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain and in the North End.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to partner with Zipcar, a forward-thinking company, and to support a great event,” said Joel Grabenstein, marketing and promotions manager at Yakima. “We are happy to be part of this initiative, even though remotely. This alliance will enable Zipcar members to enjoy the outside this summer while raising funds for cancer research.”

About Zipcar
Zipcar is the world’s leading car-sharing service with more than 400,000 members and 7,000 vehicles in urban areas and college campuses throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. As a leader in urban transportation, Zipcar offers more than 30 makes and models of self-service vehicles by the hour or day to residents and businesses looking for an alternative to the high costs and hassles of owning a car. More information is available at www.zipcar.com.

About Yakima
Yakima is a world leader in the design and manufacture of cargo management equipment solutions for outdoor enthusiasts. Yakima’s products include: vehicle racks for bikes, boats, ski equipment and gear, a line of cargo boxes and bags for a variety of needs, as well as high performance multi-sport trailers. Yakima Products is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon. For more information, visit www.yakima.com.

DISCOUNTED CYCLING, SOFTRIDE DONATE TO TENNESSEE FLOOD RELIEF

Mike Gardner’s local online bicycle distribution business was spared the flooding that caused destruction across Tennessee. Because he feels so fortunate, Gardner wants to give back.

DiscountedCycling.com will be donating $25 of every Softride Dura 4 bike rack sold this month to local relief charities.

In addition to leveraging its established nation-wide business channel to raise some cash for local relief, Discounted Cycling has opened up its 60,000 square foot warehouse to the Nashville Red Cross to use as staging ground for dispensing clean water. Gardner said of his decision to give away profit from some of his Softride Rack sales, “It just makes sense, when your neighbors need help you look around for your tools. In this case our tools are warehouse space and great customers across the country.”

Ryan Allsop, co-president of Softride Inc, got the call from Discounted Cycling and said, “We see the news footage, but don’t know how our dealers in the flood areas are faring, we were glad to hear from Mike that they were out of harms way, and when he asked if he could move some of our closeout racks for us and raise some money for local restoration, we jumped at the chance to support his efforts.