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A cyclist believes he was booby-trapped after he crashed on a bike path near his Tuggeranong house on Wednesday morning, splitting his helmet in half. Brian Pearce, 60, says the people who set up the pile of branches that sent him flying over his handlebars, hitting his head on a concrete wall, are "lower than animals". Mr Pearce spend most of Wednesday in hospital after the accident during his usually peaceful morning bike ride. "I went for an early morning ride before work, and just as I was going along the cycle path under Drakeford Drive, I come around the corner, which is a faster part and two big branches were placed across the cycle path," He was propelled straight over the handlebars and landed up against a concrete wall, splitting his helmet in two. "Two branches don't fall across the cycle track like that, there is nowhere for them to fall, somebody went out to hurt someone; this wasn't a couple of kids putting a few branches, this was an act of someone knowing full well what would happen," Mr Pearce said. Mr Pearce said he is a walking advertisement for wearing a helmet. "It was a fluke I didn't get badly hurt. I don't think I would have survived if I didn't have my helmet on, I would have been in really big trouble as far as head injuries are concerned," he said He was admitted to Canberra Hospital after another man found him lying on the ground. "I had to wait seven or eight minutes until someone found me but I came out of it not too bad with badly bruised ribs and bruising up my legs," Mr Pearce said. A keen cyclist, Mr Pearce is also concerned these acts deter older riders. "Just the meanness and the deliberateness of the act, I'm sure I'll [recover] but the next person who cops it from these sorts of animals might not be so lucky."

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