fixing flats caused by tacks
strewn on the Springwater Trail.
(Photo: Lauren Bayard)
“Frigging HUNDREDS of them,” is how Portland Craig Harlow described the scene when he and a group of friends noticed tacks strewn along the Springwater Corridor Trail on a recent ride.
Harlow says that they came across the tacks on Sunday, just east of Powell Butte near the bridge at SE Circle Ave. Harlow reported the incident into our B-SMaRT tracking tool where he wrote:
“We noticed a few more tacks on the path, and as we were picking them up we stopped approaching riders to warn them, so they started looking too. With about 10 of us looking we found about 300 strewn long 50 yards of the path.”
As riders rode up on the scene, Harlow said three of them reported getting flats in the same location in the past week. Harlow estimates that it’s likely “dozens, if not hundreds” of riders have gotten flats by these “tack-vandals”.
Harlow thinks this goes beyond a prank; “This seems to me like a criminal act,” he says, “on the basis of the clear intent to cause wanton damage to property and harm to persons.”
Has anyone else encountered this type of vandalism while riding on the Springwater? This story reminds me of a similar incident out near Corbett on the way to the Columbia River Gorge back in May 2005.