This is What NYPD Police Officers Go Through To Pass The Bike Test

Motorcycle cops are sometimes made to look like bumbling klutzes in the movies and on TV, but in real life, these officers have to undergo a lot of training to do their job, and not all of it involves handling the bike, though that is certainly a large part of the training. Motorcycle cops don’t ride lightweight sport bikes, opting instead for the combination of speed, comfort and utility offered by a Harley Davidson bagger. While these bikes handle well, they require both finesse and strength to operate in the grueling world of law enforcement, and that’s what we see the officers training for in the first segment of the video below.

With an obstacle course set up in a vacant parking lot, these would-be officers have to wind their way through the tight turns and perform a number of evasive maneuvers with little or no notice, which is a pretty accurate representation of what they could encounter during any given day on the job. You will see that there are several spills in the obstacle course, but none of them look too serious, with the bike taking the worst of the impacts.

From the parking lot, the trainees head offroad for some biking through the woods. As you’d imagine, this terrain would be tough for any rider, even one with decades of experience, so to see these rookies plowing through the brush is actually pretty impressive. Of course there are a few more spills, but at least in the woods they aren’t landing on the asphalt.

Throughout the video, there are clips of some of what we’d call “provocation training“, the officers dealing with all kinds of crap from fellow officers that mimic the stupid things they’re liable to encounter during their interactions with the public. This would be a very important part of training because dealing with the general public has to be one of the most trying aspects of this job, so more power to these guys for going through this training and working toward making our neighborhoods safer.