I have not posted on this forum for a good few years, and now I am getting back into riding after a few years of being so busy i didnt have time, this may seam irrelavent to this topic but the reason i didnt have time was because joined the met police, I would just like to point out a few things, (I realise that I may be biased in this respect but anyway i will say what i have to)

Firstly when talking about the bleep test of 5.4 this is an inital test, when you get through this (in the met every force is different) you have 5 weeks of fitness, ie fighting, running, protecting yourself, circuits etc, which should bring your fitness up (this is a pass or fail test) when you finish your training and get out on borough unfortunatly there is no mandatory fitness test unless you want to specialise eg. firearms, flying squad etc.

After this you have a further 12 weeks learning law and the baiscs of policework, with pass or fail exams every 2 weeks and pass or fail practical exams every two weeks also, this is very intense and as i have done the uni thing i can say a lot harder than anything i ever did at uni, the pressure is intense, there is so much to read and learn.

Now as Iam in the job and as people have said you do get muppets in every job, the police is no different, for example in london the met police is the biggest employer (around 35000 officers and another 55000 civilian staff working for the police) and the majority are hard working and want to actually try and make a difference.

I understand that people may be annoyed at how long it takes to get to places, but when calls come out if we are all busy dealing with other ones, no one can deal, but trust me when i say we work flat out to try and get to all of them, (for example I have worked a 12 hour shift a few times and not even had a chance to stop for food it has been so busy and there would be an uproar if that was the case in a private business) I Know this because i have been on response team (the ones who answer all the 999 calls and forms the basis of police work) for over a year now and it is hard sometimes.

It may sound like a bit of a rant but I just wanted you to have a view on what its like from the inside!

Riding back through the city from a street ride about an hour ago, no lights on the path etc. See some bobbys, jump off, get thanked by said bobbys and asked if i had a good ride, some are alright!

I have experienced bicycle theft myself a number of occasions, that was my first 2 interactions with the police.
I would ask why you think the crime number for insurance and nothing else is the only thing you will get from a statement but i imagine like in the last post you will be on the offense immediately whilst providing very little answer or insight.
Unfortunately we can't just go and arrest someont because you say they stole something, we use this thing you may or may not heard of called EVIDENCE?
You will find BTP has a scheme in place targetted at cyclists, its aim is to educate cyclists about security and to encourage them to join the bike registry. I am in London 6 days a week and have seen nothing negative as far as fines and general hassle, but like i said before, if its a law and you break it what do you expect?
Why would my bored/violent copper colleagues beat me down when we could find an innoecent cyclist to beat down and put in a cell for absolutely no reason?
I find this very hard to believe because thats not how it works. Perhaps you can elaborate on the situation?

so the fact they're riding around on the bike they stole off you isn't evidence then 

i didn't say he said he was riding it 

what i meant was, you said about needing evidence, i know someone who had his bikes stolen, one of which has been spotted numerous times being ridden by scallys. so, is the fact they're riding it not evidence enough that they stole it or AT LEAST that they're handling stolen goods? because one time the police were phones numerous times by many different people, including the mum of the kid, and they couldn't give a toss, and did nothing about it.

Yehh, I remember this night Chris before we encounted a couple of officers patrolling the area we just got off the bikes walked past them crossing over to the other side and as soon as we passed then we made it down the rest of the hill on the bike, I mean if they were bothered they would have shouted for us to stop and probably fined us. I guess its just a case of what type of policemen your area hire.