Lightening does strike twice

I dont know where the phrase comes from but I am here to testify that sometimes, lightening does indeed strike twice!

For those of you with good memories, you’ll recall Nikki and I went on a whirlwind once in a lifetime trip to the Tour de France last year, courtesy of Skoda. They ran a competition in the UK and asked people to make a short video explaining why they should send you to the Tour de France. I entered this little effort, and promptly won!

We had a fantastic, never to be repeated, once in a lifetime, 48 hours in the South of France, and I made a video of the adventure.

Skoda ran the same competition this year, only this time, instead of making a video, they asked you to tweet your favourite place to ride on Twitter. Simple enough, but I couldn’t think of one favourite place to ride so I tweeted a few! I started with…

“Where I love to ride?!? How many places do you need? Let’s start with… From my front door….”
then…
“What about… ‘Up hill & down dale!'”
and kept going…
“Or perhaps… “Anywhere & everywhere…!!!”
“Then there’s on my hols “Through the vineyards of Southern France, where the Sunflowers bow their heads!”
“How about… “Wherever my wife & children are riding, passing on my passion for Le Vélo”
“Let’s get romantic… “I love to ride with my beautiful wife to a countryside pub & share a demi-carafe!”
“Or perhaps in my dreams… “Down the Champs-Élysées, leading out @MarkCavendish to the Green Jersey”
And I finished with….
“I could keep this going all night! Safe 2 say, I would love to join you at @letour (again!!!???!!!)”

As with most competitions, I didn’t think anything more of it, until a week later when I got an email saying “Congratulations, you’ve won!!!”

What – Again?!?!?

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t believe it and wondered if it was a wind up from one of the lads. But sure enough, Skoda were as good as their word and we flew out to Nice earlier this week, to watch Stage 5 of the Tour, from Cagny-Sur-Mer to Marseilles.

I can’t describe the trip – once again it surpassed all expectations, so I made another video….

Once again, I must say a huge thank you to Skoda UK for taking us to the Tour and to all the Skoda staff in the South of France for looking after us and making us so welcome.

Now, I wonder if they’ll run the same competition next year…..???