An Executive Summary from Fatty: Today’s post tells the story of how I stumbled into the opportunity to turn my jersey pre-order into a way to give away an incredible bike, raise money for World Bicycle Relief, and have that money matched, dollar-for-dollar, by Trek.

I’m worried that for some people, it might be one of those “Too long, didn’t read” posts, though (even though I personally think it’s really interesting), so here are the basics of how the contest works, copied-and-pasted from the details section later in this post:

The prize that will be given away is a Trek Project One Madone 7 Series Road Bike , painted in the color scheme of your choice. It will have the ENVE road wheels , road handlebars, stem, and seatpost of your choice, and SRAM Red drivetrain , brakes, and levers. This is, quite easily, a $15,000 bike .

, painted in the color scheme of your choice. It will have the , road handlebars, stem, and seatpost of your choice, and , brakes, and levers. This is, quite easily, a . When you purchase a 2014 FatCyclist.com jersey (Short-sleeve Men’s / Women’s or Long-sleeve Men’s / Women’s), Twin Six and I will donate $20 to WBR, netting you two chances at the prize. Trek will match this donation, so your jersey purchase nets World Bicycle Relief $40 , and you get two more chances . And WBR will kick in a bonus chance, bringing you up to five total chances at the prize.

chances at the prize. Trek will match this donation, so your jersey purchase nets World Bicycle Relief , and you get . And WBR will kick in a bonus chance, bringing you up to at the prize. The FatCyclist.com jersey pre-order ends Tuesday, July 16 .

. The contest to win the bike continues after the jersey pre-order, going to the end of July 2013. Next week, after the jersey pre-order ends, I’ll be putting up and promoting a donation page, where you can donate directly without purchasing anything, for people who want to help World Bicycle Relief and might like to win an incredible bike, but don’t really want a FatCyclist jersey. Awesomely, Trek will still match your donation.

Because a prize is on offer, the donation part of your jersey purchase is not tax-deductible.

Thanks!

Some Things Are Meant To Happen, And I’m Pretty Sure This Is One Of Them

I’m not even sure where to start with this story; it doesn’t have a single, simple path. Instead, it starts in a lot of places, and kind of converges here and now.

So let me ask you to stay with me for a bit on this. I think you’ll find it’s worth it.

December, 2012

Last December, I was deep into my “Grand Slam for Zambia 2: This Time It’s Personal” fundraiser when I got an email from Jeremy at ENVE Composites — a maker of beautiful, very high-end carbon wheels and components.

He said he loved what World Bicycle Relief is doing, and he’d like ENVE to help with fundraising for them.

At the time, I had so many prizes on offer that I told him we should stay in touch; at some point there would be a perfect opportunity for ENVE to be a big part of a WBR fundraiser.

May, 2013

After spending several months reading about ENVE wheels and talking with people who have ENVE wheels and beginning to obsess over ENVE components in general, I got a new bike with a set of SES 6.7 Clinchers, a Compact Road Bar, and a 100mm stem.

A couple weeks later, I raced this new bike at the Rockwell Relay, and knocked seventeen minutes off Team Fatty’s previous best during the first stage of the race.

I promise you: the wheels matter.

This Week

This is where the story starts getting a little bit crazy.

Monday: I launched the pre-order for the 2014 FatCyclist.com gear pre-order. Usually with these pre-orders, a big chunk of the profits go to a charity. However, I didn’t have a big event coming up, so — out of laziness I guess — didn’t make a charity a part of the pre-order.

Also Monday: I found out that Trek, during the month of July, is matching donations to World Bicycle Relief, dollar for dollar.

Still Also Monday: A little light bulb went off in my head.

Tuesday: I called Katie at WBR, asking for more information about this matching program. “Is it for all donations to WBR?” I asked.

“Yes it is,” she replied.

“Would you be interested in having a FatCyclist.com fundraiser during July to help really take advantage of Trek’s generosity?” I asked.

“Yes I would,” she said.

“Have you heard of ENVE Composites?” I asked.

“Of course I have,” Katie said.

“Do you happen to know of someone who could donate a really, really, really nice frame as part of a fundraiser for WBR — to go with the ENVE components?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Katie, “I do.”

As it turns out, Trek — as part of their incredibly generous partnership with WBR, had made a Project One Madone 7 Series frameset — Trek’s absolutely highest-end road bike — available for fundraising.

For those of you who don’t know, the Madone 7 is an outrageously great road bike. And the Project One version of it means you get to customize the colors and design scheme so it is yours.

At this point, I fell out of my chair. Don’t worry. I was fine.

And then I called ENVE and said, “Remember how I said I’d find the perfect fundraiser to match you up with? Well, I just found it.”

It didn’t take us long to agree that this was pretty incredible: We were going to give away a Trek Series 7 Madone, tricked out with Project One colors, and set up with ENVE wheels, handlebars, stem, and seatpost, and finished off with the top-of-the-line SRAM Red drivetrain, brakes and levers.

And the best part of it is, every donation made would get doubled, courtesy of Trek.

Wednesday

I called Brent at Twin Six. “Hey,” I said, “You know how the new FatCyclist.com jersey doesn’t have a charity tied to it?”

“Yeah,” Brent said. “That seems a little off to us.”

“Me too,” I said. “So let’s fix it.” And I told them about the Project One / ENVE / SRAM Red dream bike that had just fallen into my lap, and how we were going to use it to get lots and lots of kids in Africa onto bikes, and change their lives.

“How about this,” Brent said. “When anyone orders a jersey — either short sleeves (women’s sizing too) or long sleeves (women’s sizing too)– we’ll have $20 of it go to World Bicycle Relief.”

“Plus,” I said, “Trek doubles their donation, so actually $40 goes to World Bicycle Relief. So, for a short-sleeve jersey, that’s like half the cost of the jersey. And at ten dollars per chance at winning this bike, that’s four chances at winning the bike.”

“Let’s make this retroactive, too,” said Brent. “To be fair to anyone who already purchased a jersey. We’ll donate $20 on their behalf too.”

“That sounds good,” said Katie at WBR when she heard about this, “but how about we give jersey purchasers — whether they already bought one or are going to buy one now — a bonus chance, as thanks for supporting Fatty and WBR?”

The Details

So now you know how a FatCyclist.com fundraiser comes together: basically through luck, fortunate timing, and a lot of good people who love to do the right thing.

Just in case your head’s swimming from all the back and forth here, here are the essentials of how this contest will work:

The prize that will be given away is a Trek Project One Madone 7 Series Road Bike , painted in the color scheme of your choice. It will have the ENVE road wheels , road handlebars, stem, and seatpost of your choice, and SRAM Red drivetrain , brakes, and levers. This is, quite easily, a $15,000 bike .

, painted in the color scheme of your choice. It will have the , road handlebars, stem, and seatpost of your choice, and , brakes, and levers. This is, quite easily, a . When you purchase a 2014 FatCyclist.com jersey (Short-sleeve Men’s / Women’s or Long-sleeve Men’s / Women’s), Twin Six and I will donate $20 to WBR, netting you two chances at the prize. Trek will match this donation, so your jersey purchase nets World Bicycle Relief $40 , and you get two more chances . And WBR will kick in a bonus chance, bringing you up to five total chances at the prize.

chances at the prize. Trek will match this donation, so your jersey purchase nets World Bicycle Relief , and you get . And WBR will kick in a bonus chance, bringing you up to at the prize. The FatCyclist.com jersey pre-order ends Tuesday, July 16 .

. The contest to win the bike continues after the jersey pre-order, going to the end of July 2013. Next week, after the jersey pre-order ends, I’ll be putting up and promoting a donation page, where you can donate directly without purchasing anything, for people who want to help World Bicycle Relief and might like to win an incredible bike, but don’t really want a FatCyclist jersey. Awesomely, Trek will still match your donation.

Because a prize is on offer, the donation part of your jersey purchase is not tax-deductible.

Honestly, I’m pretty much amazed at this contest. It’s a dream frame, customized to your personality, with incredible above-top-end wheels and components. This is, quite literally, going to be a nicer bike than what all but very few top pros ride.

More importantly, though — because after all, only one person’s going to win this bike — no matter what, you’re going to be making a huge difference in people’s lives. A bike for a girl in Zambia means she can stay in school longer. Have more time for studying. Get water for her family easier. Have a greater range of work opportunities. You can learn more over at WBR’s site, or maybe watch a little slideshow from my trip to Zambia here.

Thank you, and good luck!