Our favorite mid-summer race combines two things every cyclist loves – donuts and cycling – and takes place on the second Saturday in July at the Original Tour de Donut race in Staunton, Illinois USA.

Began in 1988 as a fun ride for all cyclists during the Tour de France, the sweet 34 mile route includes gently rolling terrain, two yummy donut stations and plenty of ”puke zones” en-route should riders consume too many donuts.

While donut consumption is not required, for each donut consumed the officials deduct five minutes from a rider’s finishing time.

To earn the Tour de Donut crown (a donut shaped helmet), the winner must not only pedal swiftly, but swiftly down donuts (usually plain glazed) at the two donut stops.

This year’s winner was 45 year-old Yasir Salem from New York City who won with a crazy Donut Time of 0:14:43.7 after consuming a gut-busting 24 glazed donuts (unofficial record) to earn a time bonus of 2:00:00.

Katherine Ancell was the women’s champion, downing a more reasonable nine donuts to record a Donut Time of 1:10:12.3 and finish ninth overall.

The race is so popular that even in wet rainy conditions over 600 cyclists participated this year.

The 35th Original Tour de Donut will take place on Saturday 15 July 2023, but many other knock-off versions of the race now also exist across the United States.

Complete Original Tour de Donut results HERE.

Photos: Tour de Donut SLO, M. Armfield