[Closed] Blocked trails by those out to hurt riders

Although it's mindless at least that's visible unlike wire/fishing line. Some people have no life!

Pretty normal behavior in Surrey......keeps you on your toes! 🙂
Mind you there's one particular fast downhill that has a little room for maneuver that was distributed with rocks and branches once....certainly called on all my hopping skills that night!

a trail in chopwell woods was recently booby trapped with lots of small trees which have been pulled down across the trail every 4-5m for the length of it, some uprooted and some snapped - utterly ridiculous!

quite often find branches/bricks/rocks across trails at ground level - they just make more trail obstacles to negotiate/add to the mix, but the high level stuff especially wire/rope is mindless!

does anyone know, or has anyone comeacross any of these militant walkers?? WTF is their agenda?? freaks

We have the same, took be 20 mins to move all the small trees & branches....twice on consecutive nights, must have taken them longer to gather it back up again as I can chuck stuff a fair way. Currently winning that battle

Murdocks? Bit better than wire clothes line traps, but forkin mindless none-the-less and bl88dy infuriating

Same round here (Epping Forest). Most people you say hello to are cheerful back but you get the odd scowly face, so I guess it's one if them. Probably just one or two out of the thousands that use the forest.

There is a fair amount of this going on in my local woods, however I am quite sure it has been brought about by dick heads on crossers ripping the woods up.

Ive noticed this happening a lot more recently in calderdale. Ive seen 10+ fallen trees and logs placed across elland woods. Similar thing in dean woods.

Can it be reported?

Perhaps, but perhaps better to lie in wait for them....

Not much point in reporting if the trail is cheeky in the first place

just turn it into a trail feature, lay the log down, build it into a jump, maybe leave a note thanking them for providing you with building materials

If it's the one I think it is, it's called Murdocks and is in FoD. Its in an area where there are loads of established trails that the Forestry Commission are well aware of and tolerate (not sure if that means they can be classed as official though) In fact that area has had signs put up recently stating "no riding or trail-building until August" by the FC due to nesting Goshawks. So maybe someone from the Goshawk Preservation Society* is responsible

* organisation may not exist

Get alot of it on te Isle of Wight, strategically placed rocks and logs just round bends, woodwork ripped up etc...

Have branches and trees all the time on local trails.

Even came across Barb Wire between two trees at around neck height. On a quick singletrack section through the trees, was riding through and just caught something ahead that didn't look right. Stopped a metre or so before, just glad I was looking ahead.

Was nice and rusty too, so camo'd and wouldn't over just fallen out if knocked. Properly wound and tied in tight!
Scary

Don’t understand why people want to do this on any trail, it’s not like bikers go out and put traps down for e.g. walkers and there dogs all the time.

Even came across Barb Wire between two trees at around neck height

that is incredibly insane and just evil, what goes through someone's mind when they act out like this, geez

 

there's a footpath near me across the very corner of some common land (total length maybe 150m, but avoids a busy main road and a junction), near some houses that used to suffer from this, with piles of branches and scrub just pulled across the path.

Fed up one day, I left a polite note explaining that while cycling or horse riding across this could potentially be construed as trespass, that's a matter for the landowner to decide and to act upon. However, deliberate blocking of a public row is a criminal offence*, and potentially an offence with the potential to cause injury or harm, and I had reasonable evidence who was doing the blocking**, if it continued I'd be forced to report it to the police.

* is it? not sure, but I seem to recall it is.

** I had a rough idea but nothing that would be construed as evidence

The problem seems to have gone away.......

Apparently some knob was putting pieces of wood with massive nails in them along some of the tracks in Sherwood Pines last year. That's nothing to do with ramblers not wanting cyclists on 'their' paths as these are dedicated MTB trails.

Some twisted individuals out there!

No riding / building due to nesting goshawks is reasonable.

Take it as "feel free to ride here the rest of the time".

Obstacle monkeys are idiots though, no two ways.

Having said that....I do get cross about the 4x4 bellends who deviate from the BOATS and completely destroy the area they choose to 'play in'.

Ive often thought about donning my Ninja gear and waiting in the woods for them. They'd soon get tired of driving on four flat tyres! 😈

This crops up every now and again. It's a bloody stupid thing to do, even on a FP, would they be happy if one of their obstacles actually injured some-one?!?

I've actually seen where people have snapped off a decent sized sapling to drag over a trail. Halfwits.

I ran over a buried board full of nails on Darwen Moor a couple of years back. The thing is, and whoever did this was obviously too thick to realise,a bike is the best mode of transport to use in these circumstances. It was a minor inconvience to me, 10 minutes sat in the sun changing a tube. Heaven forbid, it was a walker, a horse or a dog.

It would be interesting to explain to these idiots that, short of landmines or more deliberate traps, they're not going to hinder faster riders - they're going to harm kids and families out for a stroll. And by [i]interesting[/i] I guess I mean futile.

#viruswithshoes

There was a guy that was caught out by a tree laid across a path in some woods near me a few years back, and he later died.

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/plea-public-cyclists-death-5081646
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/4335183.stm

I don't know whether they ever found out who did it.

I live near some really nice footpaths that the land owner really doesn't want mountain bikers in as they lead to MXers (which I thought was BS) and he has signs to say as much

I was talking him into it, however he noticed a load of tyre tracks and saw a group of riders coming out of his woods; and over the weekend a ****load of MXer were hammering it around in the woods tearing it all up. So that's the end of that........

Just in case its anyone on here riding in the woods around Brockley, thanks a lot for that; and just a friendly warning if you notice a white landrover (not me) following you home don't be surprised if the road you live on becomes a store yard for farm/logging machinery.......

I ride in the same places as scandal42 above - yep, a lot of this going on at the moment.

I reckon it's the nobheads who don't even bother to walk in these places if there's any mud about, then want it all to themselves when the weather is nice doing this.

If it interrupts the flow of your ride, then hop it by all means, but I tend to go back and launch the obstruction as far as possible off the track into the undergrowth. At least the bastards will have to work to get that particular trap back.

I've moved some quite bulky logs and trees, and managed to get them quite a way off the track with a bit of 'YOU WILL NOT WIN' aggression/adrenaline.

Keep moving them, chuck them as far away as possible, their small minds will soon move onto someone else who offends them by enjoying THEIR countryside without their permission.

There is a bloke who dose this on some cheeky trails near me, he obviously has a bit of an issue, he's been at it for years.
I once saw him dragging branches into the path so gave him a 'cheers mate, that's making it much more interesting to ride' I don't think he got it.

Perhaps I have anger management issues, but if I caught someone dragging branches into a path intending to injure cyclists I'd go apeshit and insert those branches into his arse

I don't know whether they ever found out who did it.

That is really really sad. From the media/word of mouth at the time- do you think the person who did it must have heard/known about the ramifications of their actions?

Thats one hell of a conscience to go to your grave with.

A slight flip....I was once caught rebuilding the old blocked entrance to protect a protected area by.... the old land owner on the Surrey hills. She asked what I was doing, I explained, we then sat and shot the breeze for 10mins. Shes pro-bikes and was lovely to talk to. Glad she caught me rebuilding it and not riding over it 😀

I've always thought "How kind of someone to find me some logs for my firepit!" 😈

I actually think a lot of the obstacles have been put in to stop motorbikes

Some of the stuff means you have to get off and lift the bike over, which is a pain on the bicycle but a problem on a motorbike

Looks like a nice trail too. Can't imagine the the density of the trees allow you to go too fast (for me anyways :-)).

I always go over situations like this, there's not really anything you could do if you caught them, they'd just deny it to the end of the earth. Like other people have said it can have such horrific consequences. Can't imagine how badly we'd be portrayed if we laid traps for them/horses

Yes, just a fact of life really.

I don't think there is a Masonic type sect organising against us. I put it down to tossers. They are everywhere, EVERYWHERE. There are sub-groups within tosserdom, though.

Fortunately if you are dealing with amateur tossers they tend to lose interest after a bit. If they are miserable old (career) tossers then the reaper will have them before I'm too old to ride my bike.

Remember, know your enemy, they are the tossers.

I get this all the time in the woods i ride in every week, usually branches but sometimes the odd tree. What they probably don't realise i'm the one who clears all the windblow and creates the new trails they walk on. I only know of one other old boy in the village that occasionally does some work, but he doesn't go that far into the woods.
I do however leave some fallen trees and overhanging trees on the trails to put off the MX and horsey riders from using them.

Shirley Hills in Surrey was full of doggers and proper weirdos yet we cyclists used to get the odd dog walker wanting a ruc'. Weird.

I do however leave some fallen trees and overhanging trees on the trails to put off the MX and horsey riders from using them.

Seem fairly lucky so far in the Lakes. Don't seem to happen round here. At least, no any where I have ridden anyway.

Sad sad individuals though...

I do however leave some fallen trees and overhanging trees on the trails to put off the MX and horsey riders from using them.

I assume he meant that he refrained from removing them, rather than actively placed them... 🙂

Along the lines of 'I tended this trail so its locals only riders attitude

Ooooooooh.

Hora, you tease, you. That's a trailing leg if ever I saw one. That particular fire does not need any stoking. Now, be off with you before the ROSETTAS come for you.

I don't place the trees only leave them where they fall and nothing dangerous about them, you can ride over and under them. Miles and miles of fire roads for the horses and the forest in question must have upwards of a couple of hundred horses stabled around its perimeter, you wouldn't want them on single track unarmoured trails every weekend. The few disused fire roads they do use are unrideable through the winter. The trails are hardly private as they are all on strava for folk to find, loads of folk use them all week for walking.

I should add the trails are so secret that about eight weeks ago a lot of them were used for a XC running race with about 500 entrants.

Thats unusual for the FOD these days.That must be someone very local to know where Murdocks is.There was those man traps made years ago when that odd group tryed to stir up the locals by trying to ban everything in the Forest including sheep.They were a strange group to say the least.

I have a suspicion (as yet unproven) that someone in a position of authority is doing this on some off-piste stuff in Macc Forest.....

OK, we shouldn't be there but, as above, what's worse legally? Trespass or placing an obstruction that could do harm?

Morally or legally?

That's the thing, a lot of the time the law is an ass. Common sense ought to prevail, but remember, you are dealing with tossers here.

We have that crap happen here locally as well(New Mexico/USA), including wires strung across trails, trenches dug across trails and boards with nails buried in sandy spots. Locally, it has dropped off after a couple of guys were caught after doing it on Federal land and prosecuted. One got a 90 days in the slammer and a $2K fine (biker was injured pretty badly) and the other a $3K fine.
In both instances, they just didn't like MTB's sharing "their" trails.

At my local woods yesterday I noticed quite a few tree limbs strewn across the trails.
Nothing secretive, just bloody great bits of tree across the ground.

I don't see this as an attempt to injure me, more of an annoyance there to slow me down.
For it to injure me I would have to be traveling faster than i should be to be able to stop within the distance I can see.
Which on public land used by people to walk with their children or dogs or both is reckless and dangerous and would make you deserving of a log based OTB.

My bunny hopping skills are lacking so try to ride over slowly lifting one wheel at a time which has bent a few chainring teeth when I ran a triple, if too tall get off and lift over.

including wires strung across trails

Occassionally if I'm the first (really early) to go down a trail I have a 'fear' that I may come across one of these.

Never experienced this in West Yorkshire. I was abducted by aliens once on a trail though.

this should sort it 🙂

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2 wheel drive bike 🙂

That'd be ideal for ploughing through an infestation of dwarf zombies whiter 😀