Help Fight ALS, Win Prizes from Portland Design Works and Nuun

The Raffle is officially over. Thanks so very much to everyone who donated and thanks again to PDW and Nuun for their support! Follow up post coming shortly.

You can win this awesome stuff!

I don’t usually write about personal stuff on this site, but for the next couple weeks I’m going to use this pulpit to raise money for a good cause.  In exchange for helping out with the cause, I’ve got seven awesome prizes that you can win from Portland Design Works and Nuun!

The Story

On July 23-24, my girlfriend Becky and I will be participating in the ALS Double Day ride in Washington’s Skagit Valley. The two-day ride raises money for the Evergreen chapter of the ALS Association and helps fund ALS research and the community-support program the ALS Association does for ALS patients and their families. Though it’s a worthy cause for anyone to support, it’s particularly important to me and Becky. When Becky was 8, her father passed away after a hard fight with ALS.

ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a horrible degenerative nerve disease that often leaves those affected by it wheelchair bound and eventually unable to care for themselves as it progresses. There is currently no cure.

But you can help.

The Raffle

For every $5 you donate to my fundraiser page you will receive one virtual raffle ticket. Each raffle “ticket” will actually be a line on a spreadsheet with your name on it (i.e. a $25 donation earns you 5 lines on the spreadsheet). When it comes time for the drawing, I’ll plug the appropriate numbers into a random number generator and out comes our winners.

Make sure you enter a valid email address when donating so I can contact you if you win.

(Just to be extra clear: you do not need to donate $5 at a time. I will divide your donation by 5 and assign you the appropriate number of raffle tickets.)

The deadline to enter is Thursday, July 21 by 6pm PST. I will draw the winners that evening and announce it on the blog as soon as I am able to contact the winners.

The Prizes

Finally to the best part; what’s in it for you. Both Portland Design Works and Nuun have graciously stepped up to donate some of their awesome products to help me and you and the good people at the ALS Association fight ALS.

Prize 1: A PDW Poco Pump and 3Wrencho to get you rolling again next time you flat. The Poco Pump is a pocket-sized aluminum pump with a stylin’ bamboo handle. Light and small, it’ll pack away in your jersey pocket ready and waiting for some road-side flat fixing action. The 3Wrencho is a heat-treated, steel tire lever/15mm axle nut wrench. As someone who’s snapped his share of plastic levers changing flats on wet, cold Pacific Northwest road rides, I can safely say  when it comes to tire levers, steel is real.

Prize 2: A PDW Radbot 500 rear light. PDW’s .5 watt red blinky light with built in reflector has got all the power you need to be seen and safe when riding at night. The powerhouse taillight has gotten rave reviews from Kent’s Bike Blog, Wired Magazine, and many others.

Prizes 3-6: Nuun hydration package with three tubes of Nuun and a water bottle. Nuun hydration tablets are some of the best in the business. They help hydrate and replenish essential electrolytes. In short, they do wonders to keep you from bonking or cramping. I’ve personally been using Nuun for a while now. It tastes good and makes a noticeable difference on long and/or hard rides. Nuun was kind enough to donate a small boat load of Nuun and water bottles so four lucky people are going to win three tubes of Nuun (assorted flavors, 12 tabs per tube) and a nice Nuun water bottle. That’s a whole lot of hydrated rides in your future!

Prize 7: Special Edition Rapha Nuun 4-pack and Nuun water bottle. Rapha commissioned Nuun to make special edition mixed-flavor four packs with their favorite flavors. These four-tube packs are only available in the Rapha pop up stores in San Francisco and Tokyo. But you’ve got the chance to get your hands on one and a nice Nuun water bottle in which to drink those four-dozen hydration tabs. I don’t know if your rides will be more epic when you’re drinking your Rapha Nuun, but you’ll damn sure be hydrated either way.

So that’s it. Go donate on my page now! A great cause, great prizes, what’s not to love?

One final note. I am spilling over with gratitude for PDW and Nuun’s kindness. I want to give a special thanks to Dan Powell at PDW and Tyler Smith at Nuun for going above and beyond.

Thank you in advance for your help.

-Josh