The biggest error was that the steel cable stretched across the road should have had bright orange/yellow/red warning flags/streamers and/or signage to indicate the barrier was in place.

It is extremely hard to see a skinny gray cable against perhaps a grey colored gravel road and when possibly viewed through the rider's dirty goggles or helmet visor-lens.

Further; any good off-road dirt biker knows to travel slow down unfamliar trails, and to first do an area recon before blindly going hell-bent down unfamiliar trails at high speed. Had an adequate pre-recon of the trail been done at a very slow pace by the dirt-biker, then perhaps the dirt-biker would have been aware of the imposing hazard beforehand.

Any type of road barrier (cable, chain, rope, etc) needs to have some sort of bright colored warning attachment and must have 3M reflective tape streamers for night travel in an effort to prevent such mishaps. I don't think it was the land owner's true intent to harm another person, but I do believe that the land owner was negligent in not having adequate warning devices in place to prevent such a tradegy from happening.