Cycle
Now this may seem a bit childish at first, but let me assure you: this is a real problem, concerning real people. Since the dawn of mountain bikes, hikers and bikers have always had a bit of inherent beef. Bikers flying by hikers on trails- hikers pulling fallen trees across trails to slow the bikers. Now this once petty rivalry has turned serious.
In the Colorado front range area, riders Tim Fishback and Nick Kostecki were cruising in the Buffalo Creek trail network on a smooth section of single track. Within a short period of time, Kostecki flatted twice.…It seems there is some foul play. Fishback returned to his friend to help him see what was going on with his bike, meanwhile Fishback also flatted. After his flat on the way back to help his friend, the two riders discovered, what appears to be, intentionally placed bike-sabotage nails.
Fishback said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. Someone manufactured these things. It took some effort to dig those holes and put those in there and they were spaced out a good bit. Somebody was trying to do some real harm and they were targeting bikers”.
Across a one mile span, the riders found three concrete bricks (2lbs) each containing a three inch nail. These bike-booby-traps were actually buried flush into the single track and disguised well. This poses a serious danger to riders on the trail. Buffalo Creek is an area where bikers have spent nearly twenty years working hand in hand with the U.S. Forest Service to develop one of the state’s best area’s for singletrack riding. This relationship has turned Buffalo Creek from a Jefferson County burn zone into a destination for mountain bikers statewide.
This isn’t the first report of bikers being sabotaged in Colorado, however this is truly tragic that it has come down to these dangerous antics and a better resolution can’t be worked out formally. With that being said, the Forest Service is investigating this incident and declined to comment any further.
