Booby trapped trails are hardly a new thing, but to those of us in mountain biker-friendly Colorado, worrying about being injured by man-made traps on the trails has seemed like an issue that only those in the UK, California, and Vancouver (among others) need worry about—all places far from home.
Until now.
On May 14th, 2016, local Colorado rider Tim Fishback got a flat tire during his mountain bike ride in the Buffalo Creek Trail System, but his sealant wouldn’t seal the hole. As he was looking around while fixing his tire, Fishback discovered a metal spike sticking out of the singletrack trail tread.
“We could see it poking out of the ground about an inch and a half, two inches,” said Fishback.
The metal spike was about three inches long and was embedded in roughly a 2×4” cement block.
“When we tried to bust the nail, we couldn’t bust it, so we started digging, and we found the block, buried,” said Fishback. “The second one, we were quite a ways down from where we were when we found the original one, but we saw a lot of people having flats in that particular area, so we started looking for what we saw before, the nail sticking out of the ground, and we found it, a nail sticking out of the ground.”
In addition to the two spikes discovered by Fishback, a third spike was discovered by another trail user that same day. All three of the spikes were discovered on the Little Scraggy Trail within the Buffalo Creek TrailSsystem. Little Scraggy is actually one of the newest trails at Buffalo Creek, and the entire planned route hasn’t even been completed yet.
See Also: New purpose-built trails being constructed at Buffalo Creek, CO
“[It’s] really surprising being that it was built by mountain bikers, but not only open to mountain bikers, that somebody would do this,” said Fishback.
Fishback asserted that this was an intentional booby trap, set for mountain bikers: “It was not accidental. I’ve ridden there quite often, and never seen anything like it. Definitely someone put it there in the middle of the trail, specifically targeting bikers. It was effective—it was popping lots of tires. . .it was a well-thought-out device. This was premeditated.”
While perhaps the trap was aimed at mountain bikers, the spikes that were discovered could be extremely dangerous to any and all trail users. Fishback encouraged all trail users—whether biker, hiker, or equestrian—using Buffalo Creek to travel carefully.
“You could do damage to anybody with a nail like that. You really could hurt horses, dogs, and hikers, but it seems like something that was set for bike tires,” said Fishback.
Buffalo Creek is one of the most popular mountain bike trail systems in the state of Colorado. Located close to Denver and the Front Range, this system is easily-accessible by the bulk of Colorado’s population. In fact, the Buffalo Creek trail listing is one of the most popular in the entire Singletracks.com database, with 124 reviews (and climbing). The system is highly-acclaimed by our members, with a 4.33 average rating, and many 5-star reviews.
The US Forest Service could not provide official comment as of press time, due to an ongoing criminal investigation.
Seriously, in what way could someone ever justify this extremely dangerous behavior? The potential for serious injuries and damage are obvious.
Two thoughts come to mind. The first being malicious intent, i.e. hurt someone, damage something, just to do it. The second being a conservation nazi, who believes injury to human or animal or damage to property are justifiable in the defense of nature.
I wonder how a conservation Nazi feels when an elk or deer cuts themselves on the spike and gets an infection.
WTH!!!! Yeah it is bad enough to ruin a bunch of tires, but if a horse were to step on one it would cause some serious damage.
Some folks are just ugly inside.
Reminds me of this:
http://www.outsideonline.com/1808171/trial-mike-vandeman
Also see here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.mountain-bike
Super sad and disgusting. Like so many ugly things we encounter daily this one makes no logical sense. Hate is a debilitating emotion.
That’s sickening. I don’t know how someone could be such a terrible person.
What a redneck move. Pathetic and cowardly. We live in a messed up world. 🙁
A guy in Medford , Oregon was caught and convicted of booby trapping trails. The spikes that gave the mt biker a flat tire could also have injured a hiker who stepped on it.