New cycling route sabotaged with wooden stake and nails, as "hazard" protesting new access granted to cyclists raises safety fears

A group of mountain bikers, whose decade-long campaign to open up Guernsey cliff paths to people on bikes was recently successful, saw their first trial ride halted when a wooden stake with nails was found laid across the route, believed to be in an act of protest.

The Guernsey Mountain Biking Association (GMBA) received 70 licences for some of its members to ride the island's southern cliff paths as part of a four-month trial, the riders only allowed to use the route from east to west at night, between 6pm and 5.30am, and without exceeding 10mph.

And while the Guernsey Press reports the trial, approved by the Environment & Infrastructure Committee, has been viewed as controversial by some, the GMBA riders were still surprised to find such a dangerous protest during the first night of the trial on Saturday.

"It's not really something that you'd expect," the group's Chair told ITV. "People may not agree with riding bikes — some people don't. But it shouldn't be something where you go out there meaningfully to obstruct our pathway. If you were running along here, that's a trip hazard. On a bike, we have lighting but people do regularly travel here at different times of the day and may not be fully focusing on where they're going."

The stake with nails was found at wheel height, GMBA Secretary Mark Smith telling the local press it did not appear to be something "that had just fallen over".

"We were going round under the 10mph speed limit, so it would have been more of a danger if we hadn't," he said. "It wasn't something that had just fallen over. There were no other stakes like it around there and it looked like it had been taken from one of the nearby fields and placed there. Luckily, the place where it was has a good stopping distance, but if it had been on a corner it would have been much more dangerous.

"What concerned us most is that we had a 12-year-old with us, it's not just us that were put at risk."

The incident has been reported to the police, the riders also reporting seeing a walker on the route that night who was sat on a bench, the group wheeling their bikes past before continuing the ride.

Some on the island have objected to the trial allowing cycling access at night,  La Societe and the National Trust both raising concerns.

Mr Smith told the Guernsey press that finally being able to use the cliff paths by bike was "amazing" and "good fun".

"It's interesting, and good fun. It's a lot different to other rides," he explained. "Saturday was cold, but it's pretty amazing to be riding down and hear the sea below you, but not be able to see it. Sunday I took my daughter down for the first time, having first checked the ends of both trails to make sure nothing else had been placed."

Traps being placed on trails by disgruntled locals is, of course, not a new issue, this website having reported on plenty of cases in the past few years across the United Kingdom.

Just last month, cyclists in Sheffield were warned to "be vigilant" after a dog walker reported finding "a length of wire-filled electric fencing mesh" strung tight and at head height near a popular beauty spot, the homemade trap "clearly intended to do harm".

> "Be vigilant, there's an idiot kicking about again": Cyclists warned as latest wire trap "clearly intended to do harm" found on trail

Another particularly disturbing case from South Wales in 2021 saw a cyclist left needing 17 stitches for a wound to his neck caused by a barbed wire trap.

Tony Roberts "had to unwrap the wire from around his neck", the trap having been "hidden in a tree line so it couldn't have been seen". The 39-year-old was treated by specialist doctors who initially wondered if he would need surgery but fortunately managed to treat the injury with stitches instead, his partner commenting that she was just "so glad I'm not planning a funeral right now".

Earlier in the same year, police in Northumbria investigated a horrific "medieval" trap using sharpened stakes that was placed on a mountain biking trail near Newcastle.