How fit are cycling coppers?

[twowheelsgood]

Last time I was in Britain, I couldn't help notice that the police were all on fairly clunky looking mountain bikes and were, shall we say not tremendously fit looking.

Would they really stand a chance of catching the rat boy who stole my mate's cannondale road bike last Thursday?

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

I think these days they'd just shoot him

 

[frog]

We had two in my area who were on C+ as 'fuzzy' and 'jenks'. They had a very good arrest record and most of us would have been hard pressed to get away from them

 

[domtyler]

The City based ones have handlebar mounted Tasers so it would probably not be a great idea to try to out run them.

 

[girofan]

I'm no youngster anymore, but if the police gizza a job I'm sure I'd catch a few. Especially if they had pinched a high end machine.
Give the police a break so that they could get on with real policing.
Counting the revenue from "safety" cameras.

 

[Cab]

Lots of plod on bikes here in Cambridge. You've no idea how tempting it is to photocopy guidance on saddle height, road positioning and signalling and hand it out to them

 

[twowheelsgood]

C'mon dom, no way could you use a taser on a cyclist because there would be a very real risk of death or serious injury. I was under the impression they could only be used like any weapon where there is a risk to the officer.

 

[domtyler]

C'mon dom, no way could you use a taser on a cyclist because there would be a very real risk of death or serious injury. I was under the impression they could only be used like any weapon where there is a risk to the officer.

In the real world this is most likely true, however I was posting from my little fantasy world where these things are possible.

 

[gary r]

my cousin is a copper & also a good cyclist & runner (2:45 marathon time)
He told me a story where he was chasing a little scumbag,He let him keep a lead of about 50ft & slowed down in time with the scumbag,& let him run himself to exhaustion until gave up! he could have caught him in 100 yards but it was fun to see how far he could run!

 

[Globalti]

Since many of the MTB riders I know are well on the way to middle age, I do wonder if they could chase down a scrawny adrenaline-fuelled yoof on a stolen bike.

Nice little story: a pal of mine is an MTBer and rugby player. He came out of work to find some scumbag breaking into a colleague's car. He jumped on the bloke and held him for a good 10 minutes until the coppers managed to find the address - he told me the would-be thief got pretty pathetic, whining and begging to be let go but John wasn't having it.

 

[col]

My brother in law was in the police,and once told me that a bike was available,this was some time ago,and anyone who wanted to ,could use it.I guess it would generally be the cyclists amongst them that would go for it.

 

[Canrider]

I was under the impression they could only be used like any weapon where there is a risk to the officer.

Of the two, *this* is the fantasy-world statement..

 

[bonj2]

I would guess some very fit, most reasonably, some not so - like civilians really, after all it's not like they a different species
To be fair though the chances of them having to chase a fairly fit person on a similar cross-country bike for quite a long distance are slim. They're either going to be chasing someone running, in which case the chase will end fairly soon - either by the crim getting caught 'cos the cop on a bike's faster, or the crim getting away due to vaulting a fence/chucking a bin in the cop's way/getting in a car or something, and the cop choosing that it's either worth risking the bike getting nicked and pursuing on foot, or it's not. In which case it just turns into a foot pursuit, which still probably doesn't last much more than 20 seconds. OR, they're going to be chasing a chav on a BMX, in which case the cop on an MTB probably won't have much difficulty catching him. To be fair though, even if they were chasing someone on a similar bike, the crim would have to be a lot fitter and stronger, because all the cop has to do is catch up, the crim has to stay ahead, so he has to ride faster than the cop can maintain for a short burst but carry on riding faster than the cop.

 

[wafflycat]

A couple of the cycling plod I know are exceedingly fit and have no problem chasing down miscreant yoof...

 

[TimO]

my cousin is a copper & also a good cyclist & runner (2:45 marathon time)
He told me a story where he was chasing a little scumbag,He let him keep a lead of about 50ft & slowed down in time with the scumbag,& let him run himself to exhaustion until gave up! he could have caught him in 100 yards but it was fun to see how far he could run!

Smart move, it also means the guy is going to be much less inclined to be difficult when you do catch him, he'll be too busy trying to get his breath back.