Booby trap of tacks found on C.O. scenic bikeway

Between Bend and Sisters, there’s a road named Fryrear. And when Fryrear ends Holmes Road begins. There’s not much in the area: just farm land, beautiful views of the Cascades, and now, cyclists.

“We have them out here almost every day, and sometimes two to three times a day,” Kate Rohauer, who lives nearby. said Monday.

Even though it doesn’t have a bike lane, Holmes Road is part of the scenic bikeway between Sisters and Smith Rock.

On Saturday morning, Rohauer went to pick up her mail, but ended up picking up nearly 30 tacks off the road in front of her home.

“That was in five minutes, how many I found — just in that short time,” Rohauer said, holding out a handful of thumbtacks.

And her hunt for tacks didn’t stop there. While I was with her Monday, Rohauer found four more. At first, she thought maybe it was just an accident, but that did not really add up.

“I don’t see an empty box somewhere of where these would have come from,” said Rohauer. “And it would seem like they would be in all one spot.”

But they weren’t. The tacks were strewn on both sides of the road ,and Rohauer says she thinks someone was using all of these to play copycat.

On Sunday, on cycling’s biggest stage, dozens of Tour de France riders’ tires were flattened by tacks tossed on the road. Roharour is worried the same thing happened on Holmes Road.

“Here’s one, two, three, four, right here,” Rohauer showed me. “I don’t know that a cyclist would be able to see those until they were on top of it.”

Rohauer pointed out to me how after a long straightaway , Holmes Road makes a deep right turn and goes downhill from there.

That could be bad for cyclists training for this week’s Bend Memorial Clinic Cascade Cycling Classic, if right before, they ride through a booby trap of tacks.