clichty

So I was riding on the Midtown Greenway in Minneapolis this morning and at an intersection with a road all of a sudden a cop car pulls in front of me! He turned his lights on and proceeded to drive down the bike path the same direction I was going. Another biker going in the other direction had to stop to let the cop by. I tried to catch up to the cop to draft him but after a half mile he turned off so I never quite made it back up to him. I am guessing he was just bored and messing around, but still, I thought it was pretty dangerous for him to take up the whole bike path.

pitchpole

When you have blue lights on top of your car you can do what ever you want apparently. I suspect he was probably just taking a "shortcut" to his favorite coffe shop.

MitchellH

He'd been alerted that the "Hot Donuts" sign had been lit.

Spreggy

Around here the paths suffer from a lack of the presence of law enforcement, making them attractive to criminals. I'd take a cop driving through any day.

Gangrel

Or perhaps he was responding to an emergency involving a cyclist down the path

I wonder how much you would complain if that were you needing help

rankin116

+1. Don't assume, cause, you know, it make an ass.....

Not all cops are *******s. Not all cops are saints. No need to rag on them without any reason.

DataJunkie

That is how they patrol the bike paths in a rundown part of Denver. One would think that a motorcycle would be more appropriate than a cruiser but I will take just about any form of enforcement.

ILUVUK

I wonder how well that would have gone over?

not2blu

Or he was patrolling the path for bike-jackers. It doesn't happen that often but you never know.
OT: I've ridden the bike path along the river from Inver Grove to St. Paul. Pretty nice.

clichty

He might have been responding, but there were very few cyclists out at 7 AM on a Sunday morning. I don't want to judge him without reason, but it just seemed odd. I do agree that law enforcement should be important on these bike paths, but a bike cop or motorcycle cop would work better.

kgabike

In my area they patrol parts of the bike path (which is 60 miles long) with a golf cart. It's not as wide as a car but you do have to keep your eye open.

Big Pete

Maybe you where speeding?

Or the he was a perve looking for chicks!

fordmanvt

Around here they couldn't do it if they tried, there are large obstacles at every entrance to keep out anything wider than 3 feet.

thirdin77

Here here, Gangrel. Put him in his place.

Do you have any other nursery school lessons for us?

Gangrel

Milk: Does a body good

Though, probably not during a summer century

benda18

i encountered the same on a trail here about 2 months ago. i've been trying to rationalize the situation, but still can't think of 1 benefit the police cruiser would have over simply riding a cop bike on the trail.

BlazingPedals

Rather than speculate, get the car number or license, call the Police Dept and ask. You might (OK, probably) wouldn't get a straight answer, but if it wasn't for a legit reason, you can bet someone would get a lecture.

kaNUK

After the century ...and make that chocolate milk

kaNUK

PaulRivers

I agree with the other posts - I'd rather have to deal with occassional cop cars on the trails than not have them on the the greenway at all. It's nice that they actually go through it occassionally.

bdcheung

Our MUP passes through a number of residential areas.

I can remember three times where i've seen patrol cars on the path, with lights flashing, and the cop has flagged me down asking if I'd seen a burglary suspect matching such-and-such description.

BeretCyclist

Maybe deep down he wants to be a bicycle cop.

kgabike

I pulled into the parking lot of a bike trail in central Florida which I was hoping to ride on my way home after a holiday. Unfortunately, it had been drizzling a bit for the previous hour and then when I got about five minutes from the trailhead, it really opened up and just started to pour like a Biblical flood. I figured I'd give it a shot at waiting it out so I went to the trailhead anyway. There was a sheriff's car there with a bike rack on the trunk but no bike and no sheriff. He must have been out there in the middle of all that. I bet you he wished he was patrolling with his car at that point.

Retro Grouch 

Really!

How about help was needed but a bicycle cop wasn't in the neighborhood and the squad car was.
A bicycle cop arrested somebody who needed to be transported to lock up.
Squad car could have been a supervisor.
I'll bet somebody with police experience could add dozens of examples.

I don't see what the big deal is. How about maintenance? Don't you have vehicles of verious kinds to do trail maintenance? Once in awhile you are going to encounter things that are out-of-the-ordinary. They may be an inconveniance and you're not going to get your own way. Happens all the time everywhere. Get over it!

PaulRivers

Geez, why can't people just read the original post rather than ignoring it so they can push their own argument?

From the first post - "but after a half mile he turned off so I never quite made it back up to him". If the cop turned off the bike trail, obviously he wasn't going to help someone on the bike trail.

Now I also bike along this same greenway and am glad to see cops patrolling it, as I mentioned in a previous post. But don't have a big fit about something someone wrote unless you take the time to read their entire post.

NoGaBiker

I rode the Silver Comet trail this weekend, first time in years. It's a rails-to-trails thingy that goes for a long way. About 30 miles out I came to a long tunnel with a blue light at the end. Cop car sitting there behind a burned out pickup truck. Melted tires, the whole bit. Sitting in the middle of a tunnel on a bike trail. Anyway, I rode on past for awhile, then when I came back through there was a flatbed with the truck up on it just leaving the site (in the direction I was now travelling, toward home). It was a good 5-6 miles back to the first road intersection, maybe farther, and they were travelling about 15mph, so I had to drop back and go slow (I'm a real stud, yo) to keep from breathing burned-car-carcinogens all the way back.

Soooooo... maybe the cop you saw was going to investigate a burned out truck that was just off the bike path. Okay, maybe I'm stretching here.