Let’s Eat, Let’s Race: The 2014 Tour de Donut is ON

09.15.2014 | 12:35 pm

A Note from Fatty: If you’ve had enough jibber-jabber and are looking for the registration / donation pages, here you go:

• Click here to register for the Tour de Donut, and use the “fatdonut2014” discount code to save $5 on entry.
• Click here to donate to the good causes being raised by the Tour de Donut — if you donate $5 you’ll get a Tour de Donut / FatCyclist sticker sent to you.

I sometimes wonder about evolution. About what particular combination of circumstances, challenges, advantages and environment has led various life forms to the place where they are now.

In particular, I sometimes wonder what almost impossibly-difficult-to-calculate set of factors occurring over unfathomable millennia resulted in what is, without question, my single greatest — and only quantifiable — super power:

The ability to ride my bike very fast while simultaneously eating a lot of food. 

More specifically, to ride my bike really fast for a few minutes. And then to stop and eat a bunch of donuts. 

And then to do that very same thing again.

And again.

With such a powerful gift, I believe it goes without saying that I am looking forward to the 2014 Utah Tour de Donut.

And you should be too. Especially if you live in Utah. And doubly especially if you live in the Salt Lake or Utah County area. 

It’s ridiculous. It’s fun. And it raises a lot of money for causes I care about. 

And it’s Saturday, September 27, at 8:00am.

You should register now. 

Here’s How It Works

The rules of the Tour de Donut are simple (and detailed here), but really it’s very simple: You ride around a short, seven mile course three times. After laps 1 and 2, you stop and have the option to eat donuts — as many as you would like.

For every donut you eat, three minutes is subtracted off your total race time. 

So, if you can eat a donut in less than three minutes, it pays to eat a donut. Up to a point. After which point (and you’ll have to figure out where that point is), there’s nothing in the world that could be sufficient incentive to eat another donut.

My limit, as I have discovered in past years (here are my writeups from 2010 and 2011), is around thirteen. Which is a lot…though nowhere close to a winning time (for that I’d need to have eaten 25 donuts), like Regan Fackrell, whose very name causes those of us who know what’s what in the famous Tour de Donut world to tremble in terror.

And to be honest, this year I don’t even expect to come close to my best finishing time; I’m going to be riding alongside my twin daughters. We’ll go their pace (The Hammer will probably be doing a 50K trail race that day).

I do, however, reserve the right to try to set a donut consumption PR. Anything higher than 13 will get me there.

Anyone want to bet for me on this? Against me?

Why You Should Be a Part of This

The Utah Tour de Donut is run by The Rotary Club of American Fork — which I am not a member of, because they said I was too great a legal risk.

No, they didn’t really say that. I’m just too lazy to join.

But I do love what the Rotary Club does, both for local and for worldwide causes. 

Like, a part of the money raised will go to World Bicycle Relief.

But for this race, the local causes, in particular, are important to me. Thanks to the Tour de Donut, Lambert Park (which is close to my house) got some much-needed money when Alpine got flooded last year.

And more importantly, because of the Tour de Donut, the cancer wing in the hospital where Susan got treatment, has a nice blanket warmer:

It’s hard to read it in that picture, so a closeup of the plaque:

Yeah. I like that a lot. 

Register…Or Just Donate

If you live in the area, you should seriously come do this with us. It’s silly, goodhearted fun that does a lot for good causes. Plus, friends of Fatty get a $5 discount. Just click here register, then enter “fatdonut2014” in the discount code section of the checkout form. 

And if you don’t live anywhere near the race, why don’t you make the world think you did this race by buying a sticker for $5.00. It looks like this:

Obviously, it’s suitable for sticking on a bumper sticker — whether on your car or someone else’s is up to you. 

To donate $5, click here to go to the Fundraiser page, then set the quantity to 5 (or multiples of 5 if you want more than one sticker). 

I hope to see you there. If you’re not afraid of witnessing my superpower in action, that is.