Trail sabotage at Woburn

Went up Woburn tonight for a local ride. Went for a quick spin up the hill and down the rollercoasters before my mate was due to turn up.

Was flying down RC2 and about half way down just before it crosses RC1 some person had placed a big pile large logs right in the path. Luckily I stopped in time and cleared them all out of the way.

I carried on down to the bottom and then back up to the start of RC1. Low and behold another massive pile of logs right at the bottom about 15 metres before it meets the path at the bottom. I really struggled to stop in time and thought I was heading for a fall.

Now riding with my mate, we completed our ride and finished it off by going back down RC2. And guess what…..more logs…..just where the ones where that I moved about 2 hours earlier.

These logs were all placed deliberately to disrupt/slow down bikers. But I don't think the idiots that place them there realise what dangers they are causing. So just a warning to anyone planning to ride up there in the near future. Expect the unexpected.

cheers, didn't see any piles last sunday, but have encountered a few things similar in the last few months, could just be kids dicking around but some people up there don't want us thats for sure, will keep an eye out, glad that RC1 was clear sunday morning, i came down there like a man possessed , unfortunatly there was a lady with a horse walking out of the paddock gate at the exit, despite my most sincere apologies she didn't seem to except that it was a harmless coincidence.

We regularly ride around 7-8 miles from Woburn and through Stepingley woods logs keep appearing on the singletrack section. I thought it was just random but they appear right in the path so perhaps someone in the area has an aversion to bikers!

on one of my local trails ive had burnt out mopeds across the trail….And it was still hot!!!!!…Black country eh!!!!!

Caught a couple doing this at Cannock once. I had ago at them and so did the pair of horse riders that trotted up as I was bollocking in to them.

I saw the logs and reckon it's to do with the trail closure threats banded around a couple of months back, although the roller coaster isn't the area the duke is moaning about and being a reasonable down hill section it's pretty feckless to make your point here. My guess is a local misery as there are houses just round the corner and the rangers wouldn't do this without signage. On a better note there was some update on the whole closure issue (still not resolved) about new possible trails around Stockgrove, look up the thread from about lunch time today for details.

Scrote School holidays, innit…

my point really is to warn other riders to be aware and be careful first and foremost.

in my opinion the logs weren't placed by kids, more like local dog walkers/residents of which there were a few around, grumpy ones too who are probably fed up with bikes.

Was flying down RC2 …………. big pile large logs right in the path. Luckily I stopped in time

i came down there like a man possessed ,

Ok – its wrong to put piles of logs on th3e trail but shouldn't you be a bit more careful? Ride within what you can see and don't scare the natives?

Is it a surprise they are grumpy?

There's been a lot of logs dragged over the trails all over the woods for ages.

RC1 was clear sunday morning, i came down there like a man possessed , unfortunatly there was a lady with a horse walking out of the paddock gate at the exit, despite my most sincere apologies she didn't seem to except that it was a harmless coincidence.

I've had several complaints levelled at me for people doing exactly this and one thing that really **** off the horse riders and dog walkers is nearly getting run over or having their horses scared by cyclists flying out of the woods at high speed.

Most of the dog walkers and horse riders are locals so probably them that's put them there to slow you down

The logs on trails phenomenon occurs in lots of places – we get it quite a bit down in Bristol. I was talking to one guy who works for a national cycling organisation about it, and he told me that exactly the same thing used to happen on his trails too – he'd move the log off the trail and it would be back within a couple of days. Apparently he got so fed up of this that he used to roll the logs off the trail, then piss on them. Solves nothing, but I bet it made him feel better.

This is as maybe and generally we try to be reasonable when approached by walkers or horse riders. Problem is though if we take the careful approach throughout the woods we might as well take off to the trail centres. Its ok if you live in the wilds or near a dedicated centre but this is the congested south east so we are all fighting for a bit of the same (private) land. With more and more people riding in the area it's always going to annoy the locals and land owners hence the threat of closures. It all points towards some measures to make a dedicated trail otherwise something will have to give.

We have that kind of thing happening here in the US as well. Several months ago a guy strung a fine steel wire across a steep downhill, narrow singletrack. Biker hit it, fortunately he hit at at chest height instead of his face or throat. Just severe bruise as his camelback straps, on each side of his chest, absorbed a lot of the hit. It was on National Forest service land just northeast of Albuquerque—they staked the area out and caught a guy who lives adjacent to the forest land out setting up another wire. He paid a $1000 fine and 90 days in the slammer.
Right in the foothills trail system east of the city, someone was burying narrow pieces of wood with nails driven through it in the sand in the bottom of arroyos. Never caught the guy. Another guy got caught in the foothills digging all the rocks out of the trail because he hiked there and didn't like the rocks—$1000 fine for destroying federal property as his handiwork was inside the Sandia Wilderness area.

BURN THE LOG PILES WITH COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF PETROL

that way no one can put them back?

Happened on our local trail too (on a section which isn't massively well used), theres's a flow of jumps and then a shourt, sharp downhill by a chimney stack. There's no way dog walkers regularly walk down that hill with their dogs and yet someone had put a big pile of logs in the middle of it. Luckily we went down a different bit and were headed up this hill, if we'd gone down them after the jumpy bit it would have ended painfully…