In the late 90’s early 2000’s I won an afternoon sking with Alberto Tomba at the Tamworth Snowdome. It was fun, me three or four other competition winners and Alberto, we had the place to ourselves. Still have the Rosignol cap he gave me.

I won a pair hope disks – from their new CNC machine which had GoFar on them!! (Think about it if you have been on this site a long time)

Otherwise sod all.

Won about £800 worth of Exposure lights last year with the weekly Dream Bike competition. It was my first time of entering it.

One of my staff won £50k on the postcode lottery in January, she got the video call and prize reveal whilst at work…she was a little stunned 🙂

I won a six pack of Creme Eggs at junior school for coming first in a hard boiled egg decorating competition. I was rather proud of my spaceman and to be fair the prize blew my mind. It felt pretty substantial at the time.

Ian Rush’s autobiography on a radio phone in. It only passes the substantial criteria as it was the biggest waste of paper ever.

Someone very close to me got 6 numbers on the national lottery.

I’ve won some Stans Flow wheels on the HKT podcast a couple of weeks ago, a decent prize and Mtb related!

I got to race in the Gent Six days event during the break in the pro program.

Some local old people music radio station did an event and 4 fastest got to do head to head 500m time trial race during the main event. Luckily my mates dad listens to that station, we only too part cos an entry came with a two free places in the stands and free beer and food in the vip area all night.

Over the years I have won:

A bula hat in a MBUK competition

A pair of MTB gloves

An Exposure Strada 1200 front road light. That’s certainly been the best!

an ex workmate’s daughter (17) won 5 numbers plus the bonus ball on the first week of the lottery in 1994. IIRC that was around £85-90K, worth about £150K in today’s money.

Pretty decent at 17……

Via Facebook I won a load of MT500 kit from Endura :-
MT500 coat
MT500 shorts
MT500 windproof
MT500 gloves
And some overshoes. Couldn’t believe my luck.

My brother has won, down through the years
A Gary Fisher Paragon
A Marin full susser (can’t remember which)
A weekend away at Disneyland Paris
A video camera
And an IPhone 8

Not a serial competition enterer either.

A Giant VT2 worth around £1300 on an old Bike Magic competition around 15 years back.

Also 11 pairs of tickets to a festival I used to go to (worth around £2500). They were giving away 100 pairs of tickets to people who supplied their e-mail address. Turns out I had quite a lot of e-mail addresses!

won a downhill bike from the cycle show once which i sold and wasted on coke and hookers.
My former housemate worked for an ex-utility that had a sharesave scheme and when that matured he had enough to buy a big house and retire. At 42.

I once won the half time draw at the football. It was only when my dad was moaning because his ticket was 1 number out that I realised I won. He was not happy he let me buy my ticket first. We collected a nice cheque for about £600 from the reception desk on the way back to the car.

I was once one out too – at the Prologue of Le Tour in Yorkshire I was at an event (hosted by Tom Clancy and Jonathan Edwards) where we were handed raffle tickets – the woman to my left won a helicopter ride up to the start and a place at the front of the lead vehicle in the Caravan – had we been stood the other way around… 😿

Just recalled a few years ago I won the meat raffle at my mates Dad’s local in Whitby.  I don’t think some London dandy winning the grand prize was too popular.  His mum made us a cracking fry up the next morning though.

I won a £50 voucher for a very good curry house in Portsmouth. The meal was very definitely substantial (mrs g-d did come along too – so I didn’t blow £50 just on me).

Going back a bit I had several reasonably substantial Wilson different things. I won a Muddy Fox Sorcerer mountain bike in a bike magazine competition, late 80’s, early 90’s, can’t remember the mag, it was pre-MTB specific mags. Then I got an invoice from Muddy Fox asking me to pay for the bike! I phoned and pointed out that I won the bike in a competition, and it’s the magazine they should be chasing!
I sold the bike to my studio manager, who I’ve worked with at three different companies, over the course of roughly forty years, and he’s still got the bike ans still rides it!
I also entered a competition on Radio One, on Simon Bates’ show. It was a promotion centred around the movie ‘Hackers’ video release, late 1991 and was a write-in, a question asked every day, then the address details given on the Friday. Wrote the answers on an envelope, which having seen the film, were pretty easy, and promptly forgot all about it.
A while later, a couple of months or so, I get a phone call at work, to tell me I’d won!
That’s fantastic, thank you very much, etc. Couldn’t for the life of me remember what the prize was, had a feeling it was promo stuff, directors chair, crew jacket, etc.
A day or so later, I get another call, asking me if I was able to travel around the beginning of April. At which point I had to fess up to having forgotten what the competition prize was. The nice lady at the other end said she thought I seemed a bit casual about it, it was a trip to LA for two for a week, including a hire car and a tour around Universal Studios in Hollywood!
Flew with Air New Zealand, and it was a great flight too.
Oh, and I was part of a lottery syndicate that won a smallish prize, my share was enough to be able to buy the latest North Face jacket, a Nuptse down jacket, and a gilet version as well, both of which I’ve still got and wear, that would have probably been late 90’s.
Just looked, and it was 1996, NF are doing a retro re-issue of it!
A quarter of a century! 😳 How time flies when we’re having fun, eh?
Bugger-all since, sadly.

My race number got drawn after my one and only entry to an organised race (Huka Challenge, Taupo, NZ), won a holiday for two to Thailand. Flights and ten nights’ accommodation paid for, plus travel around the country and entry to various tourist attractions.

That was the second-tier prize, the top one was won by a 15-year-old lad – a Holden Commodore SS!

I used to gamble in casino’s a bit, nothing major. If I won we tended to use the money to buy holidays. In Vegas I won enough to pay for my holiday and for the guys travelling with me. When me and the wife went to the Caribbean, again won enough to pay for the holiday.

In road racing, had a few podiums and won small cash prizes. Also came third in a race series, won £43.

When I was 9, I won the biggest box of Lego available at the time. That was in 1969, in a competition on a Corn Flskes box. Family and friends children still played with it until a few years ago.
I also won a dropper post in a ‘enter your email address’ comp in another magazine about six years back.
Odd bottle of wine in raffles. That’s about it.

Findus lasagne gave away a TVR griffith, many moons ago bloke at my local won it, twas a lovely thing(he could hardly fit in it mind)

Probably the best was an Airfix-type Concorde model when I was a kid for a drawing of Concorde. Then £250 worth of Montane kit about 10 years ago. I think £50 on the premium bonds a couple of times and that’s about it.
EDIT: Forgot about a pair of tickets to V97 via the local paper.

This really made me laugh though- sorry twonks!

‘Won’ a T shirt at Santa Pod, miss-fired out of an air cannon 6 foot away. Nearly knocked me out and the Tee was far too small.

Biggest thing I’ve ever won was a box of venison. However I do know two people who have actually won cars. I had always thought those sort of things were rigged.

A weeks holiday to:

4star in Gran Canaria – amazing
5star in sharm el sheikh – ok in the hotel only
4star in kusadassi – ok

Some hiking socks for pointing out that sticking a water bladder in a freezer dies not kill germs as the previous month’s editorial had claimed.

I won a trip to the European Bicycle design contest held in Brussels about 25 years ago. First class Eurostar five star hotel and a reception at the European Parliament.

There were about 8 or 9 really weird concepts in the competition, a couple of hundred EU employees from the transport department talking earnestly about sustainability and generally getting lashed on Shimano’s dollar. I spent four days and nights pi***d and talking bikes.

Bizarre, but one of the most memorable trips I have ever been on..

Forgotten my last win- won a Wahoo Bolt when they were first released. Still going strong, was lightyears ahead of the Garmin 500 I had at the time

Nothing much. Other than £3k payout from accident insurance for 46 days in hospital – daily rate. Wasn’t so much fun with a fractured spine.

Mrs Ampthill won just over a million on the national lottery.

Shared between about 45 people. Still a nice house deposit.

She kept me going for hours asking what unlikely thing happened at work today? No really unlikely……

I won a 1 week holiday for 2 to Ibiza back in about 1990, I won it on Graham Torringtons Late Night Love radio show. Free entry and drinks each night to a few clubs

I won the Gore bike clothing competition at the last London Bike show. Never won anything before or since.

sticking a water bladder in a freezer dies not kill germs

Really???

I once won a Prutour Festina watch at the Prutour Tour of Britain, that’s about it….

Not me but better half won Alpine Bikes/Trek competition for an electric bike. Only problem was she didn’t want one. Trek were brilliant and allowed her to swap for a bike of a similar value and she is now the proud owner of a carbon Checkpoint gravel bike. Upside for me is that she enjoys it so much that I was allowed to get a gravel bike to join her – result!

Not won anything huge.
A toy boat when I was 4 at the Queen’s Silver Jubilee street party.
2 tickets to the Birmingham premier of Ghost Busters when I was 10/11.
A booze hamper when I was an apprentice.
A watch.
£50 credit on the Dream Bike Competition.
A pair of Vee tyres & a Ti-Go balance bike in the #TotalMTB Christmas raffle.
A #TotalMTB jersey and front fender.
And the odd £5 & £10 on the lottery.

My Uncle won £50k on the pools back in the 80’s.

I think i peaked at a Singletrack hip flask off of here. Gets plenty of use!

I won my freedom in a gladiatorial contest but I don’t like to talk about it.

I won an avalanche airbag worth about £500 by writing and performing a rap about avalanche risk. Apparently several people in the shop that ran the comp fell off their chairs when they heard it.

ElShalimo
I won my freedom in a gladiatorial contest but I don’t like to talk about it

No! I’m Spartacus!!

Back when I was on the tools as an electrician I used to pick up “professional Electrician” magazine at the trade counter each month. They did loads of little giveaways for tools and products and all you had to do was circle the number of the prize on a card that came in the mag. I reckon that hardly anyone ever bothered because over the years I’ve had more prizes than I can honestly remember…the best was a complete 24v Bosch power tool set worth at the time about £3000.
£2500 also for 5 numbers on the lotto.

I won some arm and elbow pads back in 2007 from MBR’s Old Blokes Who Should Know Better strand after I went face surfing somewhere on the North downs and ended up in the plastics unit at the Victoria in East Grinstead. It was very generous of them, but a new helmet would have been more useful.