!!May be posted somewhere else, but something like this needs to be known about: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7116449.stm !
I've heard about it on other paths too and people being ambushed on them; I tend not to use them at night.
The last time I cycled home along the canal a woman had just been hit in the face with a baseball bat.
Didn't that kind of thing happen a few years back on the Roseburn Path, near Craigleith ? I seem to remember reading about someone getting caught with one at head-height and getting a lot of damage to his neck. Not 100% sure on this, but it may also have happened to Maggie Wynn who runs TryCycling In Edinburgh - or was that just the giggling kids who smashed her in the face with a lobbed brick ? Touch wood and all that, but since I started cycle commuting in April '06, I've never come across that particular nasty trick. Had bottles lobbed at me, and been threatened by an 8yr-old with a brick, but those were isloated incidents and not an everyday occurrence and didn't happen in the dark.
I'm not sure of the detail but they did happen, somebody in the CTC told me about the incidents. Myself touch wood, Ive only come accross neds blocking the path, neds throwing eggs and kids throwing branches at my front wheel. In Dublin I had a firework (rocket) fired in the direction I was going, they were either a very bad or good shot but when I firework overtakes you just a few metres to the right
I can't decide what's worse. The idea that people who do this sort of thing just don't realise how dangerous it is, or that they do, and they don't care. Faced with this sort of thing, I lose all my liberal sympathies. I wonder how funny they would think it was if someone garroted them, laughing. I'd apply for the job.
I seem to recall a guy being seriously injured by something like this near me (I think it was on one of the big off road paths in/near Stockport, chest height wire in that case). Be careful out there folks.
Distant uncle of mine had similar a couple of decades ago, was on medication for the rest of his life due to the injuries. He was on a scooter with no helmet. I had it a couple of years ago as a pedestrian. Theres a snicket/ginnel (whatever you call them in your area) near me and one of the gardens has a clothes line running down it. There was too much clotherline. Some enterprising little sod had picked up the excess, taken the end to the other side of the path and tied it to a fence post. Its definitely unpleasant to get it across the neck at a slow walking pace, doesn’t bear thinking about at a decent lick on a bike.
I echo Arch's sentiments completely! Unfortunately this is the kind of game that chavs will find to their liking. If it happened to me, or I saw some lowlife hanging up a wire across a path, I would NOT be responsible for my actions! This kind of thing REALLY does make my blood boil! !
