1. there are a lot of bike cops here, especially in the downtown area. they all ride trek mtb's with about 25 kg of gear on them and they almost always ride on the sidewalk.
2. bike cops here are picked for their 'fuzzy' appeal. or at least that's the general perception. i think this pretty much came about from the g8 demo about five years ago when the pf rolled out a huge force of bike cops for crowd control. the plan was to have happy smiley cops on bikes out front and keep the heavy riot types hidden for back up. the bike thing just kind of stuck after that.
3. i firmly believe that all cops start off as idealists -- they want to be the 'good guys'. sure it's a one-dimensional attitude, but at least it's noble. of course, as lord acton said: "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" and, eventually, a hardened attitude develops in a lot of cases. my usual attitude is this: be wary of
anyone carrying a gun... whether they have matching outfits or not.
4. my last observation is that bike cops seem to be, here at least, mostly about good p.r., high visibility, enforcing bylaws and summary crimes, and doing 'crowd control'. they're pretty adept at using those treks as mobile barricades. a couple of months ago about
a dozen neo-nazis here held a demonstration and the eight or so bike cops there demonstrated an amazing proficiency at blocking off the 75 counter-demonstrators who showed up to give the local fasicst element and well-deserved running-out.