AIBU to have called police?

[Doglikeafox]

I don't personally think I am, however DP thinks so and I can somewhat see his stance about wasting police time.
For background, I have recently taken up cycling. I am a total novice, haven't been on a bike in almost 10 years after an accident and am slowly regaining my confidence.
Today was my first ever bike ride on my new road bike (or any road bike!) and so I was less than steady and opted to stay on my local cycle path rather than brave the roads. In the few weeks I have been cycling on this path, I have noticed the same group of boys (13-16 years old) sat on a bench at the top of a very small hill. They have often made comments as I've cycled path 'How much for your bike?', 'Why not get a proper bike?', 'Oh here she comes'. Nothing of note and I have always just cycled past and ignored.
This morning, I am cycling down the path and see the boys stood on the cycle path, with a tree branch at their feet that has been dragged on to the cycle path, blocking the route. The branch was easily 3 metres long, thick and most likely took two of them to move it. Thankfully I saw the branch in plenty of time as I was going much slower than normal thanks to the new bike. I stopped, lifted my bike over the branch and said, in a TOTALLY friendly and calm manner 'Listen guys, if someone hits that log and goes over it, they could seriously injure themselves and you'd end up in a lot of trouble with the police'. I addressed one boy in particular, the one stood at the foot of the log, and he started to bend down as though to move it until a friend ushered him to stop. A few of the other boys started to pipe up 'You should have just tried to go over it' 'F off' etc so I just got on my bike and carried on down the cycle path. Once I was out of sight, I called 101 and told them what had happened, that the boys had refused to remove the log and that I was concerned another cyclist may have an accident. The police seemed totally unphased, asked me 'Did you not remove it yourself?' and seemed rather annoyed that I didn't know the name of the road they could access the cycle path from (although I knew the name of the path, the area I was in and the area you could access it from!). I then got a phonecall a few minutes later from the police asking for the name of the road again (I would have had to go past the boys again to get the name of the road and didn't feel comfortable) so I said I still didn't know, and got a bit of a huffy reply that they would try and speak to the boys but by the time they got there they would most likely be gone.
When I got home, I told my DP that I felt the police had been a bit curt with me and he said I shouldn't really have wasted police time with something so trivial . In my opinion, a group of people deliberately endangering another group of people for a laugh isn't trivial.
So my question is, do you think I should have called the police or done something else? If so, what?

You totally did the right thing. I bet they thought you would get off your bike so they could nick it, little shits.

I had the same thing many many years ago, group of youths used to hang around an off track permitted cycle path in local woods and did the same thing but with huge logs. luckily was the beginning of the mobile phone revolution and police came almost right away, they had received other calls after several cyclists had their bikes nicked whilst dragging the logs off the path and arrested 2 they caught.

My DD got short shrift for phoning 999 last week, after I told her to. Her car had its back window smashed in driving along a busy single track bypass, and it was by kids on the side of the road using catapults and rocks. 5/6 other cars were also damaged, and I told her to report it using 999 due to the serious risk to other road users. Police didn't even attend, and she got a letter 2 days later to say there was no evidence to investigate further. Someone could have been killed, but apparently it was not a case to phone 999 with .

You did the right thing.

I am not hugely impressed with the police response, but then I am often not hugely impressed with the police...

Doesn't sound like 999 or any investigation to run, Jayne

Your account, no other witnesses, presumably no CCTV, contrary to tv CSI programmes you're very unlikely to get DNA or prints off an uneven rock, and the children would've scarpered as soon as the panda arrived. No immediate threat to life, no need for 999, and no evidence to link crime to alleged offenders who weren't there! Police can't charge people on one person's account unfortunately, CPS insist on pesky 'evidence' and previous experience would've made it clear a police response in your circumstance would be a waste of horrifically stretched resources - often there is not enough to get to real 999s.

I think the OP did the right thing calling 101.

What floored me recently is it costs money to dial 101 as opposed to 999. Witnessed some nasty anti social behaviour recently which wasn't worth of a 999 call but worth of a 101 call and I couldn't get through, because my phone didn't have any credit on it (my package includes normal calls so I don't normally need credit).

I called the neighbourhood policing team instead (normal mobile so included in my package) and they said they weren't actually in that bit of the neighbourhood at the time and I should just tweet it. Was a bit . Posting publicly about the little toe rags could have resulted in them tracking me down, whether electronically or in real life. Horrible idea.

By the time I got home and could top up my phone from my computer, it felt pointless calling 101...

Thanks for the responses everyone.
Can I please clarify that I DID know the name of the cycle path I was on. I gave them the name of the cycle path and the name of the road that I entered it on but it is a 50km+ route and I was about half way round it so whilst I knew the area I was in at that moment in time, I didn't know the name of the road that they could access my location from. However, I did highlight to them that there was only one access point from the area I named, so it should have taken them seconds to find on their computer.