photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Officer Steven Alvord, left, and Officer David Hogue, right, pose with the Lawrence Police Department's newest patrol vehicles, two electronic bicycles on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024, at the department's headquarters at 5100 Overland Drive.

When police are in their patrol cars with the windows up and their computer-aided dispatch system running, there are a lot of sights and sounds around them that they might miss.

But on a bike, it’s a whole different world.

Lawrence Police Officer David Hogue, a lifelong bike enthusiast, knows this firsthand, because he’s been doing bike patrol as an officer for about 20 years. Bikes help officers stay connected to the world around them, he said, and sometimes that means they can spot and respond to a crime in real-time.

“We were on bikes one night, and we heard a window break, and so we were able to respond, and we were on scene right there,” Hogue said. “We caught them in the act before they even knew we were there.”

That type of patrol got a big boost recently in Lawrence. The Lawrence Police Department added two new electric bicycles, called Interceptor Power Bikes, to its inventory of patrol vehicles in October after receiving a grant worth more than $9,785 from the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation. The new bikes are joining the department’s Trek Patrol Bike fleet.

But while the department may have a bike fleet, it doesn’t have a dedicated bike patrol unit. Hogue said he would love to see the department form one, and the e-bikes might be the kind of catalyst that could make it a reality.

Because the bikes aren’t what people typically associate with police presence, Officer Steven Alvord said they often go unnoticed by motorists, which makes for a very different dynamic when officers are on patrol.

“If you’re in a patrol car, people are going to be more amped to see you,” Alvord said. “Your very presence will help deter maybe some traffic violations.”

But the bikes, he said, are “stealthy.” And that means motorists might commit traffic infractions, like running a stop sign, right in front of a bicycle officer without even thinking about it.

Stop sign violations in particular, Alvord said, are things that he likes to watch out for while on patrol. He said while it is an easy thing for a motorist to do, it can have deadly consequences.

“Those have proven to cause a lot of traffic crashes and injuries, and I think stopping that one specific traffic violation could make a big impact,” Alvord said.

But how do you stop someone in a much larger vehicle when you’re on bike patrol? On a normal bike, chasing down a motor vehicle would be next to impossible, but the e-bikes give officers a chance to keep up.

Alvord said he once had to chase a stop sign violator on Delaware Street in East Lawrence, going uphill, and he reached speeds on his e-bike of about 28 mph. The bikes can run either pedal-assisted or full electric drive.

“It took all of three blocks to get up there; even with this thing going at like 28 miles an hour, I was exhausted,” he said. “But otherwise, if I was on a hard shell (standard bike), there would have been no way I would have caught up.”

The bikes are fitted with digital speedometers, saddle bags, oversized tires — and, of course, lights and sirens. And yes, they will use those lights to pull you over, though Alvord said the sirens could stand to be a little louder.

photo by: Contributed

The saddlebag on one of the Lawrence Police Department’s E-Bikes.

“Vehicles are made now where the interior is pretty soundproof, so it’s even harder, especially with this. So it’d be more useful if you’re trying to stop a pedestrian or another bicyclist,” he said.

Alvord and Hogue emphasized that officers on bikes still have the same authority as any other patrol officer. Even if you can’t hear the siren, the red and blue lights still mean that you must stop if the bike is trying to pull you over or yield to the officer when they are passing by.

“While it is community-friendly, and we get to engage with the community more, we are still very much police officers and have the powers of arrest,” Hogue said.

The bicycle patrol officer carries the same gear that other officers do — firearms, Tasers, mace, notebooks and body cameras. But they rely more on their phones to get information from dispatch, and they are sure to carry one extra piece of vital gear for the road: snacks.

“It’s probably one of the biggest things that I learned, was you need to make sure you have snacks. And you burn so many more calories on these things than you do on typical patrol,” Hogue said.

In total, the department has nine certified members who spend part of their time on bike patrol and just recently added six additional members who will undergo training to do bike patrol, said Laura McCabe, spokesperson for the Lawrence Police Department. The officers undergo a 40-hour International Police Mountain Bike Association training course, and Hogue and Alvord train other officers on additional skills related to the e-bikes.

The department provided this video as an example of a bicycle patrol officer in action: