Cyclist attacked on bike path by man with pipe

A 46-year-old man who works in IT was attacked on a bike path in Texas by a shirtless man by a pipe on Wednesday. The rider was headed down a new path, the Mason Creek trail. The rider was happy to avoid using the roads he normally does on his ride, in order to try the newly opened bike trail and admire the calm of riding away from cars.

But the serenity didn’t last long. Blum was riding his Specialized Roubaix, and when he saw a man walking close to the path, shouted “rider on the left” to alert him.

That didn’t go well, it seems, for the 29-year-old Zachary Nulisch. Blum then headed all the way to the end of the trail and turned around to head back home. Except this time, he saw Nulisch again, brandishing a metal pipe.

Blum was flabbergasted by the reaction, but his only theory was that the new trail and bike traffic wasn’t popular with at least Nulisch. “I’m not going to go back on that trail again,” Blum told Chron.com. “I had a weird feeling about it anyway because it’s right next to houses, and there’s probably a lot of NIMBYs out there.”

The rider was shaken and obviously surprised by the attack. “I’d never seen him before,” Blum said. I don’t get out on the trail very much either. I don’t really know his motivation, not that it really matters.”

Harris County Sheriff’s Office quickly arrested Nulisch and now faces 20 years in prison.

You can watch the video of the event below: