Nails, barbed wire, and handmade spike strips were discovered hidden along a popular Colorado mountain bike trail days before the state high school mountain bike championships were to take place there.
Numerous traps were discovered by police, who reported finding yardsticks with nails in them, and barbed wire strung across the Dirt Surfer Trail.
The witness who alerted police to the scene along the trail in Eagle, Colo., said she found “NO BIKES” scrawled in the dirt, according to the Denver Post.
The traps were discovered in the days before the Colorado High School Mountain Bike League were to take place in Eagle. The championships, which drew nearly 600 riders, went on without incident and no one was reported injured because of the homemade hazards.
The traps have sprung a multi-agency investigation between the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Eagle Police Department.
More Biker Traps In Colorado
Last week’s discovery is the latest in an unnerving anti-bike trend. In May, riders in Buffalo Creek, Colo., rode through Pike National Forest’s Little Craggy Trail and discovered bricks with nails jutting out of them.
A year before that, a rider found spike boards along the Prince Creek Trail in Carbondale.
We reported on a rash of biker sabotage earlier this year. Oil slicks and blockades across the world and even a molotov cocktail launched on the Greenway in our own backyard shocked us.
These incidents can be mischief without the intent to harm, as was deemed the case of the molotov cocktail, which turned out to be the act of kids. But often these are the result of angered (and unstable) residents and pedestrians who feel cyclists can be reckless on shared-use trails.
Most shared-use paths are perfectly safe for both pedestrians and cyclists. Booby-trapping anything to harm someone is sheer lunacy.
If you have any information on the Eagle, Colo., traps, please contact Eagle County Sheriff’s Office at (970) 328-8500 or Eagle County Crime Stoppers at 970-328-7007.
