Remember when Mathieu van der Poel spent the night in jail before the road worlds? Laurens Ten Dam and Thomas Dekker can now say, hold my stroopwafel. In a bonkers incident before the Unbound Gravel race in Kansas, retired road cyclists cum gravel racers Laurens ten Dam and Thomas Dekker were arrested for indecent behavior.
The pair recounted the bizarre night on Ten Dam’s Live Slow Ride Fast podcast that they were detained, donned orange jumpsuits, and spent an afternoon and evening in jail. The trouble arose when they tried to take a makeshift shower outside their car in a parking lot. After a training ride in Marietta, Kansas, the pair found the supermarket they wanted to visit destroyed by a tornado, (Very Wizard of Oz, btw). Hungry, Ten Dam explained that they opted for lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant. Before heading in, they decided to freshen up since they were a bit sweaty and dirty from the ride.
“We were going to have lunch at the Mexican restaurant. It was still quite early. We had completed a three-hour training ride and were now quite hungry,” Ten Dam said. “It was half past one in the afternoon. I wanted to take a little cold shower and Thomas threw water over me. We stood between the car doors, taking a shower. Suddenly I hear a man screaming very loudly. But we just wanted to freshen up for the meal.”
A local spotted the two former pros and somehow mistook the makeshift shower to be…something else. And of course, the onlooker immediately called the cops.
“Suddenly there were five police cars. The man who had shouted at us was also there and said: ‘You should go to jail for this’,” Ten Dam added. “They first focused entirely on Thomas. He was searched and then put in handcuffs. So I thought ‘shit’. Then I had to turn around and I was also handcuffed.”
Dekker went on to say that they were careful to comply with the authorities, because, well, you know, guns. The pair were then taken to a police station and spent over nine hours in jail before being released. Ten Dam also said that the citation added that the two, “sprayed each other with water bottles like two gay cyclists.”
“I think it was a four-by-four place, without windows and with an iron toilet. A small sink, that’s what it was,” Dekker said. “We were given something to eat, we were under a blanket, because we were already cold. It all took a very long time and fingerprints were taken. We also had to put on an orange suit, we were…
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