The Donut Derby

Krispy Kreme in all its glazed glory used to have stores.  Giant stores where they stored coffee and glazed donuts and cream-filled donuts that turned into absolute perfection after exactly 11 seconds in the microwave.  Since that time of yester-year, those store have disappeared, falling short on business despite the delicious nature of their economic endeavors.  They are, however, still the official provider of the donut for the Donut Derby.

Now what the heck is this thing?  The Donut Derby is a unique race in Lehigh, Pennsylvania that combines a bike race and an eating competition.  It’s a 36-mile race split into three difference sections: 12 miles - eating station - 12miles – eating station – finish.  At each station you are able to eat donuts, and each donut takes 3 minuets off of one’s ride time.  From the results it looked like there were around 300 participants.

Present for the fun was Adam, Tim, Doug, and myself, at least among those I knew.  We took a surprising quick pace at the start of the race.  I found out afterwards the guy I was taking turns on the front with is a former 1-hour World Record holder.  12 miles through the rolling hills of the Lehigh Valley later, we were at the first to arrive at the donut station in a park.  In a very pitiful display of my eating abilities, I only managed 3 donuts.  Adam managed some behemoth number of 8 or so.  Tim ate 4.

We threw ourselves back on our bikes to do a different 12-mile loop.  Four of us (me, Tim, Adam, and another guy Justin) TTT’ed the whole way and made it back to the park in good time.  My dad had shown up with the camera, and so we are graced with photographic evidence.

The setup (you took a popsicle stick from every donut you ate)

 

Again, I only managed a pitiful 3 donuts.  I should have budgeted more time to eating than I had originally anticipated.  I eventually grew to like the stack-and-stamp technique to speed things up.  Below, Adam, after just finishing his 15th total donut, can be seen before his famous last words “Put me on my bike.”

While riding back, our group of 4 gradually grew as we sped past slower people on the way back.  Tim and I were dead-even on the donut total with 6 each, so I decided I needed to do something about it.  With 2.5 miles left (mile 33.5) I attacked our group on a little rise while Adam and Tim exchanged a few quick words.  Yes…I attacked a donut race, and it was great.

Adam won the age group with a “Donut-adjusted time” of 1:01:14.5.  I was 5th with 1:27:45 and Tim was 7th around 30 seconds behind me, but I don’t really trust their timing system.  After the finish, Tim and I tooled around on the Lehigh Valley Velodrome for a little since it’s open to the public.  We got lunch at the center and hung around for the awards.  All-in-all a great fun race.  Just one thing to remember for next time:

When in doubt, eat more donuts.