Utah Tour de Donut

When I first laid eyes on the brochure for this race, I knew it was the one for me. I mean, to heck with the “real” cyclists who are doing training rides up the Alpine Loop to prepare for their double century (200 mile) ride from Logan to Jackson Hole. Let’s see if they can handle doing three 7 mile laps, eating as many donuts as possible between laps. That’s how the real men ride.

So, Jacob and I signed up to do the inaugural Utah Tour de Donut. The basic idea of the Tour de Donut is that you ride, eat donuts, ride, eat donuts, and ride. Three laps of 7 miles, and for each donut you can subtract 3 minutes from your time. However, hurling gets you an automatic disqualification, so you really have to pace yourself.

After the first lap, I only managed one measly donut (I just wasn’t feeling it). The sweet stickiness of it made it really hard to get it down. So, I wiped off my fingers and that ridiculous look on my face and got back on my bike for the second lap.

The second lap was smooth as silk (ignoring the fact that we missed a turn and had to backtrack a good half mile to get back on course). I managed to set a pretty good pace and came into the donut station feeling confident that I could improve on my disappointing total (of one) from my first round.

I finished one donut and was feeling pretty good, so I went in for my second, feeling like a real man for eating more than one. Then I noticed a lot of people taking pictures and video around me. A guy right next to me (he’s in the white shirt in the background) looked like he had had one too many donuts and was about to puke. I asked how many he had eaten and was shocked to find out that he was on his 9th for this round! That was nothing, though, because he’d eaten a whopping 17 (not a typo — seventeen) donuts the first round.

I started to pay this guy closer attention and it was obvious he wasn’t doing well. Once he blew out a long breath and started leaning over, and I was sure he was going to yack, but he held it in. He couldn’t finish the ninth donut, so they marked him down at eight and sent him on his way. I’m not sure how he managed to keep from throwing up, but he was the eventual champion with a total adjusted time of negative 3 minutes and change. Knowing a dude has 25 donuts (75 minute) as an advantage makes it really hard to push hard on the final lap. I finished 78th overall and had a good time.

Jacob met his friend Jeffrey there at the race and did the children’s / exhibition course (only one lap), but he had a great time. We will surely be doing the Tour de Donut again next year.