Is annual LOTOJA race a target for sabotage?

<strong>LOGAN—</strong> There was an unusually high number of flat tires during the early hours of the annual LOTOJA race, and riders are claiming that they were not the result of random chance, but rather deliberate sabotage.

LOTOJA, which hails itself as the longest single-day bicycle race in America, was contested on the roads between Logan, Utah and Jackson Hole, Wyo. Saturday. The accidental death of competitor Rob Verhaaren has overshadowed all other plotlines from the race including one recurring issue that endangered the safety of the other participants.

David Bern, the race spokesman, said that flat tires were experienced by roughly 200 cyclists early in the race.

“I believe to a smaller scale, sabotage has occurred in between Amalga and Trenton during all of the last four LOTOJAs that I have ridden, but for some reason the problem never gets fixed,” Hyde Park resident Joel Larson said. “The fact that it happened to hundreds of people during the race, despite the course having been swept two days prior by LOTOJA event coordinators, is just further proof that this was no accident.”

“The problems on the course in Amalga and in other areas on the way to Preston could have ended with serious consequences and we were fortunate that nothing major happened,” five-time LOTOJA rider Mont Didericksen said in an email interview.

“I was in the first group of riders that left Logan at 5:45 a.m. As we came up a slight incline … right before the intersection going to the Amalga LDS church, dozens of riders were calling out that they had thorns and flats. I was among those who had double flatted. I only was carrying one extra tube so we were stuck there until our support crews arrived with the needed tubes, CO2 cartridges, pumps, etc.”

While waiting for the support crew to arrive, Didericksen began removing the thorns from his tires.

“I stopped counting after I had pulled 30 goat head thorns from my front wheel,” Didericksen said.

“I was riding behind Darren Hellstern when he yelled out that he had a flat,” rider Dale Jensen, who is the Operations Manager for Harris Research, said via email. “I pulled off with him and noticed all of the bikers in front of us had all pulled over on both sides of the road. I heard everyone yelling ‘flat,’ ‘thorns,’ ‘tacks,’ at which time I looked down at my wheels and I probably had 20 thorns in both my front and rear tires.”

Both Hellstern and Jensen have competed in and completed ironman competitions and know how to prepare for races such as this. They have completed the LOTOJA race 11 times between the two of them. However, neither was able to finish this year as a result of the numerous flat tires that they experienced.

“Some have said that this was not an intentional act, that a farmer had recently cut the weeds down and the thorns blew on the road. I can tell you with certainty that this is not the case. Our training group rides that road three to four times a week all summer long and I cannot name one incident in the last two years where someone has gotten a flat tire because of thorns. This was as deliberate as it gets and it seems to happen every year,” Didericksen said.

“I ended up getting a flat just before Afton, Wyo. I found two thorns in my tires but they were on the side wall so it had just taken a long time to work through to the tube,” Larson said. “If it would have happened just five miles earlier when I was coming off of Salt Creek Pass at 50 miles an hour, I certainly could have been killed. This ‘prank’ should certainly rise to the level of criminal mischief if not vandalism or terrorism.”

Didericksen said he saw a white Ford Mustang waiting where all of the bikers in the first group started to get flat tires, revving its engine while someone was yelling out of the window and laughing.

“I had the impression that he was waiting the see the carnage he had created by his handiwork,” Didericksen said.

“I was in the second group and I believe it was the same car that almost ran into me as they screamed out the window at us riders to ‘Get your bikes off the roads.’” Larson said. “I remember the car being loud like it had a broken muffler or something.”

A white Ford Mustang has been at the scene of trouble in at least one past LOTOJA race as well. Last year, the Executive Director of Entrepreneurial Programs at Utah State University, Mike Glauser, had in encounter with one while he was competing.

“It was definitely a white Mustang that drove up beside me last year, just before I arrived in Alpine. It looked like there were four kids in the car. A silver barrel came out of the back window and I was shot in the thigh with a 5-inch dart from the gun. It went all the way into the bone,” Glauser said in an email interview.

“It is unfortunate that people find humor at the expense of others, but as such, hopefully someone will step up and be willing to help find those responsible for these cowardly acts of sabotage,” Larson said.

Didericksen and Larson are committing a $1000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the parties responsible for these crimes.

<em>Photos by Curtis Ripplinger</em>

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