Bekologist

Never had this happen before:

I just went out for a little traffic blitz on Saturday night thru downtown Seattle. Riding down second Ave, downhill towards the stadiums, passing Pine Street in the core of downtown bout 730 PM, I ride up on a freakin' peloton of bike cops. Must have been 16 of them, in double echelon formation, (all wearing BLACK and not enough blinkies) moving about 17-20 mph taking up a full lane on a four lane one way.

I ding my bell a couple times, then decide to pull up behind and pace them for a while, make 'em sweat it, that " there's a faster biker is behind us" feeling.

I was tailing a peloton of bike cops!! So, after a few blocks, I decide to pull on up in the next lane (taking now, a second lane of the one way), and make a little conversation.

"Looks like you guys are getting ready for your own Critical Mass!"

They guffaw, and laugh a little.

I tell them, "Looking sharp, I must say."

the sweep says, "You're going faster than us, why don't you pass?"


Rightous. Seattle is one wacky city. I had a really nice ride too, an urban core night ride at its finest.

The peloton of bike cops was the icing on the cake.

Roody

You sure are gutsy!

I would have done a quick turn and found a parallel route.

The one time I tried to talk to a bike cop about bikes, he didn't know jack.

'nother

That's pretty funny. If they were doing 17-20 with full-on Cop Bikes, that's doing pretty good -- those things are freakin' LOADED! Well, our local ones are anyway. And they use platform pedals, not clipless.

At any rate, be grateful that you *have* a peloton of cops at all!

I-Like-To-Bike

Here's something I saw in San Antonio two weeks ago, that I never saw before:

I-Like-To-Bike

Another look at the equipment load (from San Antonio.)

banerjek

Also, the way most cops are built is not optimized for cycling. If they were riding in formation, I doubt they were really pushing themselves. Very respectable pace.

There's a cop in my area that commutes by bike (road bike) about 36 miles/day. This dude moves right along -- he can hold 20+ the entire way. The last time I rode with him, he told me about a time when some jerkoff nearly ran him off the road in a truck on purpose. Big mistake. The cop ID'd the vehicle, and the idiot got picked up at his house just a few minutes later with a DUI thrown in to boot.

I-Like-To-Bike

I would suspect that "optimized cycling" and doing police work are not necessarily synchronous.

Roody

According to an article in Bicycling magazine (that admittedly had a few errors in it), police value bikes more because they're silent rather than fast. The article said they make a lot of arrests by sneaking up on people who are smoking marijuana on the sidewalk, for example.

That statement, if true, kind of sours me on bike cops.

buzzman

It sours me on antiquated drug laws that need revision. I'm sure that silence comes in useful in catching potential *******, muggers and violent criminals that are more worthy of pursuit. I much prefer a cop on a bike than a cop in a car.

The thing I like about bike cops is at least we get the chance to talk to them and interact. When they're in the patrol car they really are of a completely different species. The other day a state cop almost ran over me in his patrol car and I was on the bike path. He was taking a right turn on red (without stopping), driving one handed with a Starbucks' (not even Dunkin Donuts') coffee in one hand and in order to get around the cars stopped at the light went up onto the bike path and cut across the corner. He did not have on a siren, flashing lights or in any other way seem engaged in any kind of chase or emergency. I wish I had one of those helmet cams on to catch his maneuver and the arrogant look on his face as he made it.

I've ridden along with bike cops and had some pretty decent interactions with them. What's interesting to me is that some of the ones around here are the least "vehicular cyclists" I've ever seen. They ride on sidewalks, go down the wrong way on streets, don't stop at traffic lights and pretty much ride the way some of them drive.

CommuterRun

EricDJ

There is packs of theses guys around LA. During rush hours they reel in some money on pulling people over. A few years back I was stunned the first time I saw it.

TrevorInSoCal

While not a bike cop per se, I ride with a cop who cycles. He's a city cop in one of the most crime-ridden cities (based on per-capita crime rates, it's not a *large* city), in the nation. So he probably keeps pretty busy. Though he's a detective, so he's not generally out running around in a cruiser.

He's a good guy, and I've got a strong anti-authoritarian/anti-cop streak in me, so it probably does me some good to know a cop or two to put a human face on the uniform, and give me a little perspective. Needless to say though, I generally stick to safe topics like bicycles around him. I kinda doubt we'd see eye-to-eye on politics .

-Trevor

chennai

This is a really great group of photos. One of these will be on my office door on Monday.

Cycliste

And this is the most important thing, rather than sneaking in to make arrests contrary to popular belief. Bikes have helped a lot of towns to get law enforcement officers to re-connect with the community. Bike cops seem to get a lot more respect from youngsters in the street than officers in patrol cars or even on foot.

Slice2

Is it my imagination, or are those front cops shooting the breeze while the back one whizzes over the bridge railing?

MarkS

So its really the thin yellow line?

Something seems odd about the bike on the far right -- looks like the fork goes straight down ... an optical illusion?

Bikepacker67

I think there's some serious rounding up in the initial post.

spandexwarrior

The OP said that these cops were biking downhill. That speed is slow for downhill.

I-Like-To-Bike

I doubt it. That bridge is over the RiverWalk and below are a zillion tourists walking about.

Bekologist

Yes, it's down a good little downhill where I caught up with the peloton, 17-20 mph easy with no pedalling. Most of the police bikes around Seattle are using conti town and country tires, a pretty fast semislick 26" tire. I saw on the news later that night the bike cops were out in force to stave off mardi gras trouble down by the stadiums in the 'party district' of Seattle.

thebankman

It must have been cool to see a group of police biking like that, hopefully it will be a more common sight in the near future. I bet bike cops on the beat could cut down on street-level crime like drug dealing and the like.

Bikepacker67

Sorry about that... I missed the downhill part.

JohnBrooking

Hey, I learned a new word today. Thanks, Bek!

But I still don't know what a bekologist is...

lyledriver

^Whats funny is that I just looked that up too. Coming from an MTB/BMX background, we don't really have those...

Sheldon's Entry is cute:

ReptilesBlade 

A few nice links I just found.

https://www.cyclelicio.us/2005/11/bik...ss-driver.html

https://camwest.pps.com.au/news/bike-police.html

https://www.ipmba.org/factsheet.htm

And thanks for all those great pics. Does anyone have any more?