Congratulations Bernadette - you're our final winnner!

Friends - that was a blast. Six weeks, six bikes and a whole lot of amazing support and enthusiasm from you, for which we're very grateful. We'll be launching some fun initiatives heading into the holiday season and we hope you'll stay tuned and continue to lend your support.

Our final winner could not have been more excited. With her permission I'm going to share the email exchange we had yesterday as I worked to track her down. This was fun and I thought you might might appreciate it too.

First, her site was a blogger blog. Blogger blogs don't give readers a way to contact the author. I find this annoying, but I wasn't going to give up until I tracked her down! About an hour into following links, doing some searching and digging I found an email address that might be connected to her, and I sent this message:

"Hi I’m from MADSEN Cycles and I’m trying to reach Bernadette Noll. Might this be the right email address?"

Several hours passed. I finally stepped out for dinner. When I returned my email box had a series of messages.

First one was this:

Oh please tell me you're looking for me because I won this week's bike!!! Oh please oh please! I mean I love my late 1960s Schwinn with the makeshift basket on the back that I haul groceries in for my four kiddos but COME ON!!! Everyone who knows me says I belong on one of your bikes!!!

Can you tell I'm excited?

Then another:

I know I have 24 hours to contact you back but I am paranoid I'll somehow miss it! So, just to make sure, here's my home email as well.

And finally

Okay. It's now 10:15 pm here. You can find me on Facebook already freaking out about the possibility of winning one of your bikes. And soon I will go to bed not knowing for sure whether I won one of your bikes or not. It's hard to sleep when you're so excited!! but I'm going to try because the alarm will ring at 6:20 whether I won a bike or not and I'll be checking my email quite frequently in the wee hours of the morn. Why can't you be east of us so I know you'd be up before me?? Oh well. If you need to call me you can at xxxxxxxxx.

Until tomorrow. I bid you goodnight while I dream of riding the kids to school in my brand new Madsen bike with the Slow Family Living sticker on the back.

I'm pleased to report that at 10:51pm I was finally able to connect with Bernadette and deliver the good news. After which she promptly choked up. She'll soon be the proud new owner of a MADSEN cycle and is already plotting ways to transport her kids around in it. To those who are disappointed about not winning, hopefully you can take some comfort in knowing that it went to a good home.

Comments

[Bernadette]

A TOTALLY appreciative home. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas. I am counting down the days!! And my kids are too. Today, my son said to me, "If your bike arrives while we're at school will you wait to open it?" And I told him, "If the bike arrives while you're at school I'll open it and ride to school to pick you up!!" Can. Not. WAIT!!!

[nikkol]

that made me really happy =) enjoy it!

[Brooke]

Congrats Bernadette! Your a lucky girl!

;-)

[Kimberly]

Glad it went to a good home. My MADSEN arrived at my husband's bike shop today. I'll be riding by tonight!

[Angela]

I don't see any minorities in any of these photos.... Uhmmmmm....

[Ashley]

Congratulations Bernadette! I anxiously await the next giveaway opportunity!

[Acai Berry]

lucky you... at least you deserve it... interesting post

[aion kinah]

Nice post. This post is different from what I read on most blog. And it have so many valuable things to learn.

[aion kinah]

Thank you for passing this on. I have filled out the form and am anxious to hear more about Clever Girls.

[sto credits]

great lucky girl,all best wisher for you:)

[ffxiv gil]

Congrats Bernadette! best wishes for you!