If you’ve been following professional cycling through one of its strangest years yet, it won’t be difficult to recall when the EF Pro Cycling team took to the start of the Giro d’Italia in kit that seemed derived from a hallucinatory fever dream. (There’s no forgetting time trial helmets in the form of a cartoon duck’s head.) It didn’t wind up on the podium, though it did earn EF a fine of 4,500 Swiss Francs, roughly $5,000.
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The gear resulted from an unlikely collaboration between Rapha, EF’s sponsor, and Palace, a UK-based skateboard and clothing brand. Cannondale got in on the action, too, dressing up its bikes in trippy highlighter yellow, sticker-like logos and, yes, cartoon ducks.
It’s too late to buy one of the jerseys — unless you’re willing to fork over hundreds for one on eBay — but you can win one, along with one of the bikes that saw pavement in Italy, through a raffle USA Cycling is holding. You’ll also claim a POC/Giro special edition helmet and sunglasses and a USA Cycling family membership.
A single chance to win costs $20, while the value of each prize is $12,500. The money supports a good cause too. Cannondale and EF Pro Cycling recently announced an initiative with USA Cycling to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in cycling by providing equipment, funding and mentorship to new co-ed teams at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities for the next three years. Raffle entries will directly support the initiative.
The bike is Cannondale’s aerodynamic SystemSix, which the company claims is the fastest road bike in the world.