IPMBA's Annual Police on Bikes Conference features an excellent mix of on-bike and classroom sessions presented by experts from around the country. On-bike sessions include basic, intermediate and advanced bicycle handling skills, firearms skills, bike patrol tactics, and officer survival. Classroom sessions include community policing, safety and liability, health & fitness, and bicycle maintenance. The Conference also features the nation's largest bicycle patrol-related product exhibition.

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New South Wales Doubles Bike Patrol

Formalised training programs prepare bike officers for duty

by Adam Bernhardt
New South Wales Police

The New South Wales State Police (NSWP) in Australia is set to double their bike patrols from 300 to 600, thanks to funding being provided by the State Government.

The upgrade recently saw 21 NSW Police officers graduate as Bicycle Patrol Instructors Course at the Police College on Goulburn on 1 October 2004. Although Australian Police do not use the IPMBA Police Cyclist Course as their starting point for bike patrols, the NSWP was fortunate enough to have an IPMBA instructor present to assist. PC Mark Cockram from City of London Police (IPMBA UK) was on hand to provide the NSW with some tried and tested IPMBA techniques and also to train the three senior NSWP instructors as IPMBA Police Cyclists.

The course and graduation was the result of a four-year study conducted by NSWP Bike Officers attached to the NSWP Bicycle Project Committee. The NSW Bicycle Project Committee was formed in 2001 to look at what type of training was offered to bicycle officers from other law enforcement agencies from around the world. Their mission was to create a bicycle training program that would make NSW Police officers some of the best trained bike units in the world.

The additional 300 MTB's have been custom spec'd for the NSW Police. The new MTB, based on the Diamondback Topanga Comp 2005, consist of high-end (XT/LX) Shimano components, hydraulic disk brakes, enhanced front shock absorbers, enhanced lighting/batteries, reinforced carry racks and bar-ends.

Bicycle patrol coordinator and chief instructor Senior Constable Adam Bernhardt said the course had been so successful that NSW Police had sought to get the training nationally accredited by the Vocation Education Training Accreditation Board (VETAB).

"The Police College facility is the only one of its kind in Australia," he said. "We had an instructor from the City of London Police Bicycle Patrol Unit PC Mark Cockram offer specialised training to us during the recent instructor's course. He's also an accredited instructor with the International Police Mountain Bike Association (IPMBA), which provided us with training techniques from both the UK and USA. Our program has been so successful that police from other State and Federal agencies have expressed interest in having us train their officers in bike patrol and also use our specialist training facilities."

Before the new course could take place, Senior Constable Bernhardt, Senior Constable Ian Dodds and Sgt Jamie Tennent undertook a MTB mechanics course customised for the NSW Police Bike Unit.

IPMBA provided resources and information to assist with the development of bike patrol training manuals for officers and instructors, as did Park Tool USA and John Barnett, from Barnett's Bicycle Institute.

Senior Constable Adam Bernhardt will present a lecture at the 15th Annual IPMBA Conference on how to minimise risks to police officers performing bike duties. Some of the issues he will cover include: risk identification, documenting the risk assessment and management process, injury reduction during training and operational deployment and bicycle fleet management.

Any person going down under for some R&R or interested in learning more may contact Adam Bernhardt at bern1ada@police.nsw.gov.au.

© 2004 IPMBA. This article appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of IPMBA News.