Photo Contest: Send Us Your Soggy, Snowy, Rain-Soaked Walk or Bike Ride!

This year has dealt us some crazy weather, from the polar vortex to drenching thunderstorms. We know you didn't hide all winter in a car. You were out walking the walk and riding the bike, whatever the weather. We hope you got a picture of it!

In honor of April showers -- and to celebrate the end of an epic winter -- we're co-sponsoring a Showers & Snow photo contest with the Alliance for Biking & Walking and Ortlieb. Send us your gorgeous photo(s) of walkers or bikers in the rain or snow where you live, and you could win a fabulous set of waterproof Ortlieb panniers and bike bags.

Contest details

Photos: Please send high-resolution files (at least 1,600 pixels wide or tall), without watermarks. Please submit no more than 10 photos for this contest. For inspiration, check out the finalists from our last photo contest.

To enter:

• If you're on Flickr, add your pictures to the Ortlieb Showers & Snow photo contest Flickr group. In the photo caption field, provide your name, email, city and state, as well as a caption.
• If you are not on Flickr, email your pictures as a JPG or PNG file to photocontest@bikewalkalliance.org, with the subject line “Ortlieb Showers & Snow photo contest.” In the body of the email, provide your name, address, telephone number, email address, and photo caption. Please submit your images in as few emails as possible.

In both cases, if you didn't take the picture yourself, please let us know who did!

Prizes: First and second prize winners each get a full set of awesome, waterproof Ortlieb panniers and mountable bags to turn your bike into a badass hauler.

Deadline: Friday, May 2, at 5:00 p.m Eastern time. Streetsblog and Alliance staff will pick 10 finalists and post them for our readers to choose the winners.

Permission: Taking pictures of people in a public place is legal and does not require permission. That said, we encourage you to ask permission as a courtesy when taking pictures of other people.

Rules: Employees (and family members of employees) of the Alliance for Biking & Walking, Streetsblog, and our parent organization, OpenPlans, aren’t eligible for this contest. Your submission constitutes your guarantee that the photograph is an original work created by you alone. Normal photo editing is fine, but please, no photo-shopping that alters the content of the photo. Only pictures taken in the United States are eligible to win.

By submitting photos to this contest, you are authorizing the Alliance for Biking & Walking to place your photo into the Alliance’s online Flickr photo library for use by the Alliance, Streetsblog, and Alliance member organizations for charitable purposes related to bike and pedestrian advocacy.