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Please be really careful if you are riding up at the Otley Chevin Forest, particularly on the singletrack paths as I found evidence that someone had been fastening clothes lines across a path in the Fell Park area.
I found a length of cord fastened to a tree at about head height (which thankfully had already been cut by someone) and there were several lengths of clothes line & a pair of scissors in the leaves to the side of one tree. This could easily have been used to create another trap, in my opinion.
I’ll be contacting the forest wardens about this tomorrow, but there is clearly only so much that they can do to stop this happening again, so please watch out if you’re riding up there. There are some real idiots around and this type of trap could easily cause serious harm if someone rode into it!!
Nasty. Thanks for the warning
Odd to leave the scissors behind?
thats gona hurt!
is this to hurt people on bikes or to get you to fall off then they nick your bike?
I thought that the scissors was odd too, but there's no doubt in my mind that this was there to take someone off. Could just be kids messing around, could be someone trying to get someones bike I guess, but the end result still would be the same for a rider.
I've ridden that section of trail loads of times & at speed it could be hard to spot a line like that.
Considering the Chevin is specifically covered by [url= http://www.leeds.gov.uk/files/Internet2007/2009/31/chevin%20forest%20park%20(1).pdf ]by laws[/url] which prohibit the riding of bikes any reporting to the ranger could be controversial.
Even though the law bans bikes, any attempt to cause injury is also illegal. Two wrongs don't make a right and the police might be more interested in attempted GBH than in someone riding their bike in the wrong place
then report to the police, not the ranger?
I ride on The Chevin weekly (I live in Otley) and I use lots of Singletrack all over it. Only ever been shouted at once and that was from the house at the back of Danefield on Bramhope Old Lane. If I ever meet anyone on a trail I always give way and I've never seen any traps as you describe. The fact that someone is now doing this is very worrying - simply not good enough.
Can you detail which trail was booby trapped please?
Fell Park is the area at the very east of the Chevin (towards the Bramhope end).
I'd also be interested to know over which trail the trap was laid. There has been some recent thinning work in a couple of the plantations down that end - any chance it could have been positioned to restrict access during the works?
I occasionally run up that way and will spread the word - a couple of mates organise mid-week headtorch runs. Was the trap laid at bike-head height, or pedestrian head height?
The line was about head height ~5 feet off the ground, which was why I was so surprised & shocked. As you say, there has been some thinning work going on up there, but not that close to where I found the line.
The singletrack path I found it on runs on the edge of the Fell Park area & is parallel to the main (gravel) footpath going down to the chariot sculpture & boardwalk section to the pond/ Bramhope. The line was tied to a tree towards the top section of this path.
Ok. I call that Danefield. I was there yesterday afternoon, didn't see anything untoward. I've let all my mates know so we'll keep an eye out. Did anyone contact the rangers?
I went up that gravel track but then turned left and went through/round the deciduous woods on the Bramhope side and out at the top then across the track where the felling has been taking plage. It is close to the house I mentioned in my previous post.