Embrace Change
Ed.’s Note: In this issue of IPMBA News, current IPMBA President Wren Nealy yields the “floor” to Allan Howard, who served as IPMBA’s first President, from 1992-1997, shepherding the organization from its formation as a program of the League of American Bicyclists to the threshold of independence. We are thrilled to announce that the 30th Annual Conference will be held June 1-6, 2020, in the city Allan served for so many years: Dayton, Ohio.
It’s Sunday morning and frost is on the ground. It’s chilly, to say the least. The weather report promises accumulating snow next week and I have no reason to disbelieve it. The only ride I’ll get today is on the rollers in my basement gym. This season of the year always gives me time for reflection. Just a couple of months ago, I was helping at one Police Cyclist Course and visiting another. Watching those officers, firefighters, paramedics and security personnel learning basic skills was invigorating. So invigorating that a few times I forgot that I was more than 30 years older than the students’ average age. Quite literally, I rode with people who weren’t even born when IPMBA was formed.
When I think about the younger people I rode with, I can put a name to some of their faces that isn’t their own. Maybe it was a slight physical resemblance, something in their speech or mannerisms that reminded me of someone I worked with years ago. I literally got to see my replacement’s replacement; indeed, IPMBA has come that far. This experience transported me back to one of the most rewarding times of my life, and I’m grateful that the Dayton Police Department and other local agencies were kind enough to include me.
While the quality and caliber of personnel seemed to be the same (very high), the equipment was vastly different. My mountain bike and the bikes ridden in class are literally decades and in some cases, light-years, better than what we started on more than 30 years ago. Better frames, wheels, gearing, suspension, and – I can’t believe I’m saying this – hydraulic disc brakes.
Out in the garage is my old Colnago with Campy (Campagnolo) Super Record components. It’s not as fast as it once was, but the fault lies with the aging engine, not the bike. I remember when Shimano introduced indexed shifting; one click of the downtube lever equaled one cog out back. I complained to anyone who would listen that indexed shifting and clipless pedals (introduced by a French ski binding manufacturer called LOOK) would ruin racing and cycling altogether.
It would bring people to cycling that didn’t have the skill to friction shift a rear derailleur or have the forethought to loosen their Alfredo Binda toe straps before stopping; and that, according to me, was a “bad thing”. There would be horrendous crashes in the racing pelotons because these people didn’t want to learn to ride the “right way” or pay their dues as I had, with unintentional shifts during sprints or chains that got stuck between chainrings while a breakaway was going up the road.
If I’ve learned nothing else important in my life, this one thing is at the top: I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I succumbed to clipless pedals because, in a criterium race, if you aren’t out front, there’s a whole lot of sprinting to do because everybody except those at the front has to brake while cornering. Brake, sprint, brake, sprint; do that a couple hundred times and all you’re going home with is a good workout and a little less tread on your tires. Indexed shifting and ultimately brake/shifter combos found their way onto my bikes because, without them, it was like using a muzzle-loading pistol against guys with machine guns. I hated it but I had to do it. I think what I hated the most was being wrong. The “new” stuff was better in every way. It performed better, it was lighter and it didn’t fall apart as I proclaimed it would.
Mountain bikes, from the very beginning, broke from the traditional and focused solely on performance and aesthetics; history-be-damned. Were it not for that, I’m not certain that public safety cycling and IPMBA would even exist. I said all that to say this: don’t fall into the same trap I did by limiting your thinking about technology as it relates to our bikes, equipment or anything else that has the potential to make us more efficient or safer on the job. That could mean an e-bike, a new frame design, different wheel/tire sizes and/or anything else that isn’t what we consider “traditional”.
This applies to everything we touch; I mean, who wants to go back to a six-shot revolver with the spare rounds in loops on their belts? IPMBA was literally born because someone said, “let’s do something different”, in spite of what others in law enforcement thought about it. Those naysayers were wrong. We’re still here nearly 30 years later, bigger and better than ever. When something new becomes available or things change, keep your eyes and mind open.
One last thing before I go. Many of the recent Police Cyclist Course graduates I had contact with will become lifelong cyclists. Long after their careers, they will continue to ride and reap the benefits of being healthy and alive. I think that’s why IPMBA has a higher than average membership retention rate of people who aren’t necessarily still riding bikes at work; because it goes beyond that. Take a moment to think about what bike patrol has done for your career and life in general.
If you think, as I do, that it’s made your life richer, please consider a monetary gift to IPMBA. Everything in the world runs on money and IPMBA is no exception. Your generosity goes directly to making public safety cyclists safer in their jobs because of training, education and the exchange of ideas and methods at yearly conferences. I’ve lived in a world where those things didn’t exist; just like the differences in our bikes, what we have now is light-years better.
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in Fort Worth!
Allan Howard, PCI #001
Dayton (OH) Police Department (Retired)
(c) 2018 IPMBA. This article appeared in Vol. 27, No. 3, of IPMBA News 2018