I’m running a contest on Twitter right now. The prize is a $20 gift card from online bike retailer Jenson USA.

To enter: Tweet a 5-7-5 haiku about bicycling. You *must* use the hashtag #baiku and you must get my attention by appending your tweet with @cyclelicious. The Deadline is at noon US Pacific Time (about two hours after I post this). I’ll judge among entries and select a winner. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON. If you submit a haiku then come up with what you think is a better one later, delete the earlier tweet.

What I’ll look for:

• 5-7-5 syllables in the language your haiku is written in. In other words, five syllables on the first line, seven on the second, five on the third.
• Ideally, each line can stand somewhat on its own, with the full haiku encompassing a theme. There’s flexibility here, but clumsily splitting a sentence at a 5-7-5 boundary just to meet a technical requirement of haiku is lame.
• Ideally, some kind of season, nature, or weather thought traditionally is a part of haiku; but don’t force it just because you think I might like it better.
• English is my primary language, but I can muddle through a little Japanese, French and Spanish as well. You’re taking a risk combining languages, but it may win you some creativity points, and I’m a sucker for multilanguage puns. Maybe a lolcat bike haiku?

Good luck! I always see excellent bike haikus, and I anticipate I’ll probably pick three or four I like best and then pick randomly from that. I’ll also collect the best and post them for the world to see.