A manual for cycling police officers...

[kenyonchris]

Before we are out on the bike we go through the IPMBA course.
I thought the article was funny "TWO VOLUMES to tell officers how not to fall off a bike"... and what do I do? Crash regularly on patrol (from watching one thing and riding another).

The IPMBA course was hard...as a pretty experienced MTB rider and road cyclist I thought it would be a breeze. But it is almost all slow speed stuff. Try riding a circle in a 9ft box. Much harder than it sounds. We do lots of stairs and stuff, which was easy for me (well, easy going down), but the only thing that was a breeze was cycling to the course every day, I was able to drop everyone going up the big hill!

The worst thing about cycling on patrol is cycling in my gear. It adds 15 lbs to me (vest, belt, flashlight, gun, radio, two sets of cuffs, spray, mic box, knife). And every fall is expensive (radios seldom survive).

[papaver]

kenyonchris... do you have to pay for your damage when you fall?

As a kid I had several courses given by the police on how to ride with your bike in heavy traffic, how to fall, stuff like that. We got those once a year from the age of six till twelve. It was fun at the time. :-)

[OakLeaf]

Wow, they have those military-spec phones that are supposed to survive all kinds of drops, you'd think your radios would be up to that level too. Bummer.

[kenyonchris]

kenyonchris... do you have to pay for your damage when you fall?

As a kid I had several courses given by the police on how to ride with your bike in heavy traffic, how to fall, stuff like that. We got those once a year from the age of six till twelve. It was fun at the time. :-)

No, it just gets damaged out. Falls happen, so no.