August 30, 2022

"A Dane County cyclist is warning others to be alert after finding booby traps set on a popular commuter path on Madison’s Southwest Side."

"Gregg Goldstein of Verona was crossing the bridge shortly before 5 a.m. Friday when he was clotheslined. He remembers seeing his headlight reflect off something a split second before he hit the ground at about 15 mph. 'It’s pitch black,' he said. 'You see something and a millisecond later you’re picking yourself up off the pavement... I feel lucky that’s all it was. My head is still attached.'"

47 comments:

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Wow that's dangerous and stupid. I hope the perp is caught! Check the area for trail cams because he/she was probably watching one way or another.

chuck said...

That's potential homicide. There have been bicyclists killed running into ropes and wires.

Lurker21 said...

They got Biden.

Now they're coming for you.

Wince said...

Strung by a walker who resents the bikes?

Josephbleau said...

In the video the guy was drinking beer outside in the park at the trail. Is that OK in Wisconsin?

n.n said...

Wild animals.

Curious George said...

It's a popular commuter path but the only one this happens to is this one guy?

Jupiter said...

That was something I used to think about a lot, when I rode bikes a lot. The bike trails here in Eugene are mostly through woody areas, which are, of course, filled with tents surrounded by piles of stolen goods. Anyone who wants to can put a rope or wire across the path, between a couple trees, or under a bridge. Then they can take your phone, wallet and backpack while you lie unconscious on the ground. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them yet.

Temujin said...

Viet Cong in Madison?

Narayanan said...

some anti-Madisonite could be copy-catting Kind Hearts and Coronets film by Hamer [1949]

wendybar said...

Awful. People suck.

Owen said...

Sounds like attempted murder. Not sure how you find the creep(s) who do this, but I think one safety measure could be taken from WW2 when GIs driving jeeps in hostile territory risked disaster from neck-high wire strung across the roads. Solution? Fix a vertical cutting blade 2-3 feet long to the hood of the jeep.
It would not improve the aesthetics of your bicycle, but it might save your life…

Smilin' Jack said...

"Gregg Goldstein of Verona was crossing the bridge shortly before 5 a.m. Friday when he was clotheslined. He remembers seeing his headlight reflect off something a split second before he hit the ground at about 15 mph. 'It’s pitch black,' he said. 'You see something and a millisecond later you’re picking yourself up off the pavement... I feel lucky that’s all it was. My head is still attached.'"

Yes. This approach to nuisance abatement works much better on motorcycles.

Mark said...

Scary.

That said, so are some motorized 'bicycles' if you're walking any of these trails (esp with a dog).

Buckwheathikes said...

Soooo, lemme get this straight.

One guy found all three of these "ropes" or "cords" or "cables" strung across the bridge. Over the course of days.

One guy.

Nobody else who uses that has reported them.

Just the one guy.

Gee, I wonder who put them there? It's a mystery.

But boy, this Goldstein guy, he's a real hero. Isn't he?

Isn't he?

Anthony said...

Well, that's a bit much. I was expecting some sort of poop-flinging device set up by a disgruntled pedestrian. While not altogether supporting such pranks, I for one found most cyclists in Lefty havens like Madison and Seattle to be worthy of some comeuppances.

Indigo Red said...

"Awful. People suck." Cyclists are the worst.

typingtalker said...

Smilin' Jack said, "Yes. This approach to nuisance abatement works much better on motorcycles."

Not funny.

Homicide: the unlawful killing of one person by another.

Synonyms: murder · killing · assassination · liquidation · extermination · execution · slaughter · butchery · massacre · manslaughter · patricide · matricide · parricide · fratricide · sororicide · filicide · infanticide · uxoricide · regicide · slaying

typingtalker said...

Smilin' Jack said, "Yes. This approach to nuisance abatement works much better on motorcycles."

Not funny.

Homicide: the unlawful killing of one person by another.

Synonyms: murder · killing · assassination · liquidation · extermination · execution · slaughter · butchery · massacre · manslaughter · patricide · matricide · parricide · fratricide · sororicide · filicide · infanticide · uxoricide · regicide · slaying

Jake said...

Anyone else suspicious that Gregg did this?

Maynard said...

I live north of Tucson which is a true bicycling Mecca. Many of the bikers are annoying, both to walkers and drivers.

People are pissed off by bikers forcing traffic to veer away because they are double teaming the bike lanes so they can talk. You can easily swerve into oncoming traffic. It is also dangerous to walkers because they bike on nature paths. Many will speed by you without warning.

I am more scared of being hit by a biker than by being bit by a rattlesnake or coyote. Friend was hit while running and broke her hip.

That said, setting up booby trap is really stupid. I prefer to yell at them when they are rude.

Howard said...

Everyone knows that fat lazy conservative republican pantloads hate bicyclists. Although, clotheslining mountain bikers was a popular detergent deployed on the trails of Mount Tamalpais. That's in the libtard heaven of Marin County for you people from Rio Vista.

Joe Smith said...

Most cyclists I observe are complete assholes, but even I don't want to kill them...

Dave Begley said...

The police need to make a strong effort to catch the criminal who did this and that person needs to spend about 10 years in the state pen.

Watch "The Counselor" (with Javier Badem) if you want to see what this trap can do.

Joe Bar said...

My niece’s fiancé was killed in that manner. The perpetrator needs to pay.

bobby said...

"In the video the guy was drinking beer outside in the park at the trail. Is that OK in Wisconsin?"

In Wisconsin, it's mandatory.

Ian Nemo said...

Back in the early 70s I was living in Toronto. It was cut by deep valleys with parkland at the base. I enjoyed hiking steepish trails down to the parks. However I ran into the work of some psychopath, who had strung a wire at ankle level across the path. I tripped and turned a couple of full somersaults but wound up down slope with nothing injured but my dignity. No one was in sight. I didn't report it. My interactions with the Canadian police in that era were perhaps a little tense (except for a Mountie named Art who rolled fat tidy joints for the gang in our apartment, but wouldn't smoke them for professional reasons). I suppose if I moved back, I'd be suspect for a whole different set of impurities of thought.

n.n said...

murder (n.)

"unlawful killing of another human being by a person of sound mind with premeditated malice," c. 1300, murdre, earlier morþer, from Old English morðor (plural morþras) "secret killing of a person, unlawful killing,"

Demos-cracy is aborted in darkness.

hawkeyedjb said...

Geez, you guys. Why the animosity toward cyclists? You can decapitate someone like that. If it's phony, shame on him. If it's not, it goes away beyond "prank."

jg said...

I would 100% not advise publishing such stories. Copycat suicides are a problem of the same nature.

paminwi said...

Never thought to call the police until a co-worker told him to?

Yancey Ward said...

I vote that the cyclist is the guy who put up the boobytraps he found.

Yancey Ward said...

I vote that the cyclist is the guy who put up the boobytraps he found.

Yancey Ward said...

I vote that the cyclist is the guy who put up the boobytraps he found.

jg said...

I would 100% not advise publishing such stories. Copycat suicides are a problem of the same nature.

Mason G said...

From the article: "a busy commuter path"? Three times? And the same guy found all of them?

I suppose it could happen.

Marc in Eugene said...

White Bird here in Eugene is hiring three new psych workers. The people of the trails will surely benefit from the "color, light and décor" the experts offer and not succumb to the temptation to wire trap the bike paths.

The new clinicians' areas of interest and expertise include working with the LGBTQ+ community, helping those who struggle with addictions, crisis intervention as well as therapeutic treatment services to living organ donor candidates, recipients and their families.

The new space will be designed to try to communicate a sense of calming, grounding and reassurance through aspects such as the color, light and décor. The goal of its trauma-informed design is to make sure the people who are receiving care are given it in a way that recognizes past traumatic interactions with authority, family or anything else that makes accessing care harder.

Plague Monk said...

Soon after the Vietnam War, a good friend of mine returned from overseas to his family's farm just south of Lake Ontario east of Rochester. They owned a lot of land, and had a problem with both bicyclists and dirt bike types creating ruts and leaving trash. He and his father talked to the leaders of the clubs, but to no avail. The local cops weren't interested, so my friend acquired some razor ribbon and some of us helped him set it up on his property. We put signs up, warning that no trespassers were allowed(people legally hunting on the property were told how to avoid the wired locations). That practice ended the trespassing. Private property.
My friend wanted to setup some of the Claymores he brought back, but we talked him out of that with some reluctance.
I had a similar problem on my land some years later, but I just strung black coated wire across my trails at neck level, and the problem ended within a month.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

People can really suck. I hope they find out who this is, and can keep him in jail for more than one night.

Here in Proggie B-town - bike theft is off the charts.
I have fantasies of booby trapping a decoy bike.

sort of like this - but for bikes.

CWJ said...

“I believe the same person did all three based on the tying,” (Goldstein) said.

He should know.

loudogblog said...

"HDMI cables are typically used with computers and other electronics equipment."

What an odd thing to say. It sounds like they don't actually know what an HDMI cable is.

HDMI cables are typically used for televisions these days.

Plus, the fact that it was an HDMI cable had no effect on how dangerous it was when strung across the path. (As opposed to any other electronic cable)

The part that is interesting is that HDMI cables are not usually very long. Three feet or six feet usually. This cable is much longer than that. This implies that the suspect has access to longer HDMI cables than most consumer ones.

GrapeApe said...

So now we have someone or more who don’t want folks going anywhere at all. Have mercy, I’m glad I do not drive a car in my town. The green nude eel is going to promulgate more of this stuff.

MadisonMan said...

White Bird here in Eugene is hiring three new psych workers
White Bird -- given the song of the same title (link) -- is not a good name for a Psych facility.

Marc in Eugene said...

Ha; I mock the pretension to woke enlightenment etc but the White Bird folks do a great deal of good work.

In 1969, a group of medical workers, university graduate students, energetic counter-culture members and other concerned citizens gathered to explore ways to respond to some of the fallout of the 1960s, which included a growing number of youth and young adults who felt alienated and disenfranchised from the mainstream system. Many were runaways and living on the streets, and were not likely to access the usual services available despite their needs, among which were medical, legal, mental health and substance use... Out of this effort came White Bird Socio-medical Aid Station (later White Bird Clinic), incorporated in February 1970 as a 501(c)3 non-profit agency.

I had always figured that the name came from some Native American practice or event etc but maybe it's from It's A Beautiful Day. Hmm.

Narayanan said...

Ben-Hur chariot race with bladed wheels

Begonia said...

This has had heavy coverage in the Madison biking social media. I also live near the bridge. It's near some low-income housing and I assumed that teenagers lacking in empathy were behind the prank. Lots of people complain about broken glass regularly being shattered on the path north of the bridge--maybe the people behind the broken bottles decided to do something more malicious.

Becuase of that, I hadn't considered that they guy could have set these traps up himself. Let's consider the coincidence factor first. Yes, it's unusual that he's been the one to find it, but the number of people biking crossing that bridge at 5 am every day has got to be extremely low. I would guess that no one uses it between midnight and 5 am. There are some other paths in the area that might get used by people coming back from work shifts but they wouldn't cross that bridge.

On the other hand, he apparently is from Verona. If he's going to or from Verona, he wouldn't use that bridge at all--he would be using the Military ridge State trail, which goes below the Badger State Trail bridge. So yeah, that's odd.

Begonia said...

loudogblog--I had to buy an HDMI cable recently for my son's COMPUTER to connect to his MONITOR, so the statement is fair enough. And strangely, it was kind of tricky to find a short HDMI cable that was less than 6'. A lot of the ones that automatically came up on best buy and newegg.com were like 18' or 25' long. If you rewire your house and install one of those tvs that mounts on the wall and then you re-wire the cable behind the wall to your xbox you can easily need a 12'.