In last week’s Fast Facts Friday post we featured a handful of cities, organizations, and companies offering free helmets. Helmet awareness and bike safety has grown immensely over the last 20 years and we are thrilled to see so much philanthropy.

Today we’re kicking off a helmet giveaway campaign via twitter. Here’s how it works: Follow @BellTrueFit on twitter and be automatically entered to win a new Bell True Fit bike helmet!

Each time we reach another 100 followers, we’ll randomly select one of our followers to send a new Bell True Fit helmet to! Plus, each time we reach another 100 followers we’ll donate five helmets to an organization that is dedicated to helmet advocacy and bike safety. We’ll be giving helmets away when we reach 700, 800, 900, and 1,000 followers.

As of today we have 647 followers, but once we reach 700 followers, we’ll randomly select a follower to send a new helmet to. We’ll also send five new bike helmets to SafeKids USA for them to share in their efforts to keep kids safe.

If you’re already following us on twitter, well then you’ll be automatically entered into a drawing to win a helmet once we reach the 700, 800, 900, 1,000 follower milestones. But please encourage your followers to follow @BellTrueFit also, so we can reach our goals that much sooner!

Here’s what you can tweet:

Follow @BellTrueFit – they’re giving away bike helmets as they reach 700, 800, 900, & 1,000 followers! Please RT http://bit.ly/dcqRlc

Here’s what you could win (and what we’ll be donating):

The Bell True Fit Adrenaline

Stay tuned for the first winner!

March is upon us, and while Punxsutawney Phil, the only true weather forecasting groundhog in the business, saw his shadow back in February predicting  another six weeks of winter, we are already looking forward to the green of Spring. Daylight Savings begins on March 14, St. Patrick’s Day is on March 17 and fun bike rides and tours are popping up across the country.

In today’s edition of Fast Facts Friday we’re discussing some of the upcoming bike rides and tours taking place across the country, with a focus on some of the the more interesting and obscure events. If you know of or are participating in any interesting bike rides or tours coming up, let us know! Just leave a comment below, and maybe we’ll feature you in a future Bell True Fit blog post!

1. The Muddy Buddy Ride is coming to a city near you! From California to Virginia, down to Florida and up to Oregon, the Muddy Buddy Ride and Run Series is a must for the adventurous. Muddy Buddy is all about having fun (and getting muddy of course) with a friend, family member, partner or co-worker. Teams of two traverse a 6-7 mile off-road course and five obstacles. “At the start of the race, one team member will run and one will ride the bike. At the 1st obstacle, the rider will drop the bike, complete the obstacle, and begin running. The runner will arrive, complete the obstacle, find their bike and begin riding. Teams will continue leapfrogging each other through the entire course,” according to the Web site. Funds raised through this meaningful program, benefit the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) and allow people with physical challenges to live an active lifestyle. So go get dirty, challenge yourself, support a great cause, get some exercise and get to know someone really well! Visit Muddy-Buddy.Competitor.com to get the “the dirt” on this awesome event.

2. Maybe getting sweaty and muddy with a boss or new girlfriend isn’t your cup of tea … maybe you’d prefer a glass of wine? Geared towards the novice rider, with an epicurean/vinophile bent Napa Valley Bike Tours offers a variety of scenic bike rides through rustic wine country. Since 1987 they’ve been offering single and multi-day guided bike tours, self-guided bike tours, bike rentals and bicycling vacation packages that include accommodations and dining. Sample and purchase wines, wine and dine at some of the best wineries and restaurants, and enjoy an “invigorating sensory experience” as you roll through scenic Napa Valley past rows of vineyards. Visit Napa Valley Bike Tours or become a fan on Facebook to start planning your trip today.

3. Register’s Annual Great Bike Race Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) always takes place in the summer, during the last full week of July. Sponsored by The Des Moines Register, this annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River, and is the oldest, largest and longest bicycle touring event in the world.  RAGBRAI is heading into its 38th year in 2010. A week-long rider fee is $140 and includes baggage transportation, camping accommodations, emergency medical services, daily route maps, entries into drawings for a free bike, and much more. Meals, concerts, parties and events along the way make this scenic ride all the more worth it at the end of every day (after you’ve ridden 75+ miles!). Hurry though, because the entry postmark deadline is April 1, 2009. Visit RAGBRAI.com for more information and check out their blog for interesting updates.

4. Not interested in being confined to the borders of one state? Cycle America offers Cross-State Tours and a Coast-to-Coast journey from June to August. Go from Seattle, WA to Boston, MA crossing over 13 states and one Canadian Province in 64 days. The ride will take you 4,200 miles, averaging 65-86 miles per day through “the lush mountains and forests of the West, across the grasslands of the Great Plains, to the lakes and farms of the Great Lake states and the quaint towns of New England.” The cost is $6,685, and is all inclusive. If a three month bike ride across the country doesn’t quite fit into your calendar or your bank account, you can opt to ride one of the nine cross-state tours for much cheaper (roughly $800 per event). For more information or to reserve a spot visit CycleAmerica.com.

5. Looking for something closer to home, maybe not as long? Then check out The World Wide Bicycle Tour Directory (BicycleTour.com) – a comprehensive directory of bicycle tours and events for both road cycling and mountain biking. They have an easy-to-use menu to help you find bike tours based on country, state, month, duration, and type.

Whichever tour you participate in, be sure to wear your helmet! And be on the lookout for Bell helmets along the way, as many of our models are considered the best. ConsumerSearch.com says the Bell Vela is the best bike helmet for women, the Bell Citi is the best bike helmet for commuters, the Bell Boomerang is the best bike helmet for toddlers, and the Bell Trigger is the best youth bike helmet.

The wheels are in motion and helmet heads are a spinning – full of brilliant bicycle ideas! What are your thoughts on bike sharing, pothole tours and cycling delivery folks? Or ice “racing”, spinal cord helping helmets and Rollers? Not quite sure what we’re referring to? Check out this past week’s bicycles stories that were in the news!

• January 11, 2010: One frustrated citizen discusses the dangers of bicycling on ice – what she calls “Hood ornament racing”. A new winter sport, just in time for Olympics. (Jeanne Holden Cornwall, Standard Freeholder)

• January 11, 2010: A government study has recently found that while movies made for kids are getting better at portraying safety behaviors like wearing seatbelts and bike helmets, they’re still missing the mark about half the time. Seat Belts, Bike Helmets Go Unused in Movies Aimed at Kids. (Serena Gordon, BusinessWeek)

• January 11, 2010: A team of scientists at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver have developed what they call a two-shell helmet design that adds extra protection to deflect the shock of an impact away from the spinal cord as well as the head. Canadian scientists designing helmet to prevent spinal cord injuries (Staff Writer, BrainandSpinalCord.org)

• January 12, 2010: Bicycling Diaries – Thoughts and opinions from one semi-competitive cyclist. Elbow Room: Pedal To The Mettle (Ben Spies, SuperBikePlanet.com)

• January 13, 2010: Virginia staple, The Bike Lane, donated 42 new bikes to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation last holiday season and collected over $8,500. Donating Joy of Biking (Allison Austin, The Connection)

• January 14, 2010: Don’t want to brave the cold weather, but miss your bike during the winter months? Get Rollers! They are a special indoor training device that allows you to ride your regular outdoor bicycle like a real bike inside. Rollers look like a set of three big metal rolling pins with a rubber band and an aluminum frame. Rollers: like learning to ride a bike (Tim Burke, The Palm Beach Post)

• January 14, 2010: Bike Delivery in Portland: They not only bring the market to you—they help alleviate the congestion and the smog that comes with it. Pedal Power: Portland’s Bike Delivery Services (Chad Walsh, Neighborhood Notes)

• January 14, 2010: On Saturday and Sunday, the City of Cape Coral’s 19th annual Tour de Cape (featuring running, walking and bicycling events) took place. Everyone’s a winner in Tour de Cape events (Staff Writer, News-Press)

• January 14, 2010: Following in the footsteps of places such as Paris and Amsterdam, LA looks into bicycle sharing. As Bicycle Sharing Plans Develop, LaBonge Would Rather See Bike Stations (Zach Behrens, LAist)

• January 15, 2010: A bicycle ride featuring a tour of the largest sinkholes in the High Springs area was held by the Yellow Bellied Sliders Bicycling Society at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 17. Bike ride to tour High Springs’ largest sinkholes (Staff Writer, The North Florida Herald)

This weekend, the season’s most popular Northern California ride, America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride, will take place in Lake Tahoe.

What’s also special about this event is that this bike ride will largely benefit a great cause: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, as part of the Team In Training cycling program. Season after season, Team In Training unites thousands of new and experienced cyclists and coaches them through months of training to be race-ready, all while raising funds for blood cancer research, education and patient services. The end result for those participating in this weekend’s event on behalf of Team In Training is not only an epic and scenic 72-mile ride around the lake, but also contributing funds to LLS to be used in its efforts to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

In addition to this weekend’s event in Tahoe, what’s nice to note about most large organized bike rides is that there are many worthy and honorable causes that receive added publicity and funding support from thousands of riders. For those that need some added motivation for biking, consider biking for a greater cause.

Here are a few additional June bike for a cause events around the nation that are also receiving chatter on twitter:

Ride for AIDS Chicago – June 6, benefiting the Test Positive Aware Network to raise funds for HIV/AIDS in the Chicago area.

Tour de Cure in Saratoga Spring, New York – June 7, benefiting the American Diabetes Association. Lots of twitterers are involved.

Healing Wheels Tour in Morristown, Colorado – June 13, benefiting Inner City Health Center, a non-profit clinic providing health services for the un- and under-insured in metro Denver.

Ride for Autism in Lincroft, New Jersey – June 13 benefiting Autism New Jersey, while raising community awareness about autism.

Are you participating in these events? Is there another cause that you are passionate about that we haven’t listed here?

Share in the comments or tweet at us @BellTrueFit and let us know!