Top departments for bike patrol

[bigpoppaproppy]

Just curious what departments are known to have large, quality units? Which departments have officers on these full-time(or nearly so), are large enough to be able to get onto, etc

thanks in advance

[GoIrish04]

Fairfax County, VA has bike teams at the district stations and they are highly regarded. It is a tough unit to get a slot in. They are full-time from what I know.

[ignignokt373]

Almost every City in the US has a bicycle unit of some sorts. Some are better than others.

I know that Seattle and Vegas were one of the first to start units.

As for F/C having one. I live/work in the area and have never seen them on bikes before other than motorcycles. I see their Copters out a lot and that (to me) would be the unit to get in. But thats just me.

[gonefishin]

A buddy of mine works for Bethlehem PD (in PA) and I understand that they have a very good bike unit.....

[MSoCal]

I would say any beach city PD in CA or FL. I cant see a LEO on patrol on a bicycle in a region that gets cold during the winter months.......

[ignignokt373]

I cant see a LEO on patrol on a bicycle in a region that gets cold during the winter months.......

I know a lot of agencies on the East Coast and in the Midwest that not only run bike units year round, they run motors as well. ;)

[jeeper]

San Antonio TX has a very highly regarded bike patrol unit in their downtown area, though I've heard its supposed to be spreading city-wide. University of Wisconsin Madison PD has a very very good bike unit. They're one of the major training agencies for bike cops in the upper mid-west. Nearly their entire PD is bike trained and you can check out a bike pretty much whenever you want to either inplace of or in addition to your squad.

But, like others have said, nearly every department has bikes and bike trained cops now adays.

[Blue Leader]

Seattle definitely started the trend but I have no idea how big their unit is.

The biggest unit I'm personally aware of is in Las Vegas. They are all over the place and work all kinds of special events.

We have a full time team of 10-12 officers that works the downtown Gaslamp bar district. We also have a team that works the beach area. They "can" ride year round but generally don't in the winter as there are few people out on the beach. They generally stick to the 4X4 Tahoes at that point.