Oakley & Eurosport To Mark 100th Tdf

Oakley has teamed up with Eurosport to launch a search for two fit and motivated cyclists who will be asked to “Conquer the Road” to celebrate the 100th edition of the Tour de France in 2013.

The partnership will see cycling fans offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to ride one of the iconic Tour de France stages with a professional rider as part of a new campaign by the sports eyewear, apparel and footwear brand.

The winners will have their experience filmed and broadcast by Eurosport as part of a four-part mini-series called “The Ride” – which will be shown during the channel’s 2013 coverage of the annual race.

Oakley’s brand director for EMEA, Olaf Dunz, said: ‘The Oakley family of world-class cyclists continues to grow, and we want to create a movement around cycling and inspire a broader audience to get out on a bike.’ 

‘The “Conquer the Road” initiative is one of our most important campaigns this year and the concept we have developed with Eurosport, is one of the key tactics to support that. It enables us to deliver this initiative right at the heart of European cycling and to the millions of fans there who enjoy Eurosport’s unrivalled coverage and broadcast expertise in the sport.’ 

Stefano Bernabino, Eurosport’s head of cycling added: ‘This is a fantastic project and one that will make for great television. The winners will be attempting something every fan has probably dreamt of, which is riding alongside their heroes on the route of a Grand Tour stage. It will be a real challenge, physically, mentally and emotionally but I have no doubt it will be something they will remember for the rest of their lives and will make a fascinating accompaniment to our extensive live Tour de France coverage.’

Fans across Europe can now visit a digital hub developed by Oakley – conquertheroad.eurosport.com – and register their profile. The closing date for entries is Tuesday 30th April.

Using their own social media networks via Twitter, Facebook and Google+ the fans must then secure as many “kilometres” as possible through votes – the more “kilometres” they earn the higher up the leader board they will go. 

Kilometres can also be earned by completing the different elements within the entry form.

To ensure entrants also have the physical attributes, votes will be awarded for kilometres cycled and recorded by logging in with strava.com, a GPS tracking platform during the recruitment phase.

Two lucky winners will then be selected to tackle one of the Tour de France’s climbs alongside a former legend of the Tour and a current professional rider, with one winner riding Mont Ventoux and the other, Alpe d’Huez.

Eurosport’s cycling production team – which covers the three Grand Tours of France, Italy and Spain each year, alongside coverage of the one day Classics and other international races – will produce four programmes for “The Ride” series.

The first two episodes will focus on introducing the winners, outlining their challenge and the preparations riders will undertake ahead of the ride.

Episodes three and four will then focus on the rides themselves as the lucky winners tackle Mont Ventoux and Alpe d’Huez respectively.