Police Motorcycle Skills Competition

[VEGASRIDER]

Today, a local casino hosted the Annual Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department SW Area Motorcycle Competition benefiting the Special Olympics for Nevada. Most of the departments were from Arizona and California, there were a couple as far away as Wichita Falls Texas and Eugene Oregon. The riders were timed and penalized by seconds, the amount varied by the severity of the penalty. Penalties included: touching cones, knocking down cones, placing a foot down, to dumping your bike (there were plenty). There were individual courses, tandem teams ( you have a strap 2 feet long that is velcrod at each end , if it detaches from your partner you disqualify). Team competition in groups of four (four bikes in that small circle, not much room for error). Bikes are grouped by make. Harleys, BMW's etc. BMW has a dry clutch so you could smell them burning their clutch out everytime they finish the course. The Harley's foot stool were scraping the ground all the time. You can see some of the scrapes from the photos. Many dumped their bikes, the side bar attached to the bikes really works. They picked up those monster bikes the same way you saw on the "how to pick up your bike" thread.


http://www.fz6-forum.com/forum/members/vegasrider-albums-sw-area-police-motorcycle-competition.html

[ant_mb]

Those guys have skills! I love the tandem pics, who can do that with those huge bikes!

ALL those pics emphasize the same thing, look where you want to go, and not where your at at the moment.

These folks that make it as far as the competition are highly skilled and just watching them at an event can be a huge advantage to the unskilled rider as from that competition they can learn. The California Highway Patrol has an awesome ride academy up around Sacramento and they have their own race track too. I love the way those folks can just float that 800 pound bike around like it was a mini-bike.....

[VEGASRIDER]

Yeah, I was pretty much in awe watching them go around the obstacle course. But when they screw up, I mean screw up real bad and continue to screw up, it almost becomes a comedy act. I was asking a couple of the patrolman who rides the BMW's and asked them how fast they have gone or can go? The answer was it tops out around 140mph, because of the weight and aerodynamics with the saddlebags. So our FZ6's can still outrun them, but not by much, but again all they may need are the skills.

Originally Posted by VEGASRIDER

I was asking a couple of the patrolman who rides the BMW's and asked them how fast they have gone or can go? The answer was it tops out around 140mph, because of the weight and aerodynamics with the saddlebags. So our FZ6's can still outrun them, but not by much, but again all they may need are the skills.

A while back that show on Speed channel called super bikes or something like that had film from the CHP academy and one of their officers said their BMW bikes toped out at like 127mph and again this was due to added weight. Out where you folks live it isn't the bike you have to beat, it's Motorola and the Huey. Out here they haven't figured out what a Huey is yet so they don't use them. It costs to much as well.

[reiobard]

looks like it was a good time, those guys have much better skills than I. I wonder what they would be like if we put them on a pursuit R1 or something.... Insane....

Originally Posted by reiobard

looks like it was a good time, those guys have much better skills than I. I wonder what they would be like if we put them on a pursuit R1 or something.... Insane....

So I guess this means you haven't heard about the Busa troopers in Oklahoma? You will note the bike pictured is set up for RADAR enforcement.

[VEGASRIDER]

Originally Posted by HavBlue

So I guess this means you haven't heard about the Busa troopers in Oklahoma? You will note the bike pictured is set up for RADAR enforcement.

I didn't see that there.......but I did get to see the new Buell 1125 on display, very nice.

[reiobard]

Yeah, i know Busa's are used for police bikes, but you never get to see much info on those being used... It would be interesting to see the skills put to use on a machine that can handle the skills back...

Originally Posted by reiobard

Yeah, i know Busa's are used for police bikes, but you never get to see much info on those being used... It would be interesting to see the skills put to use on a machine that can handle the skills back...

Hah, it's more fun to see what goes wrong when there is a lack of skills added to having enough money to buy the bike. That's generally a rather lethal combination..