{"id":5353,"date":"2013-08-13T04:00:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=5353"},"modified":"2013-08-13T04:44:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T08:44:12","slug":"what-kind-of-motorcycles-do-motorcops-ride-off-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=5353","title":{"rendered":"What Kind of Motorcycles Do Motorcops Ride Off Duty?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This question, &#8220;what kind of motorcycles do motor cops ride off duty?&#8221; was recently entered into a search engine and was directed to this blog, but to a post that did not answer that question.<\/p>\n<p>I am not a cop, but I ride my motorcycle on group rides with some motor officers, and a close friend is a motor officer who rides a personal bike, so let me share some observations.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nFirst, most motorcops do not own or ride a personal bike.  Yep, sad as it seems, there are many motorcops who ride on the job but don&#8217;t ride off the job.  Why?  Common answers have been given to me when I have asked motorcops this question (answers as if a motorcop is speaking):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My wife\/family don&#8217;t want me to ride. It&#8217;s a safety issue. They worry about my safety enough when I am on the job, and don&#8217;t want to worry about me riding a motorcycle on personal time. (This is a frequent reply from cops who are married.)<\/li>\n<li>I have kids to cart around to activities they do, and I can&#8217;t take them on a bike. I had a personal bike but stopped riding it when the kids came along. (Another frequent reply from cops with children.)<\/li>\n<li>A motorcycle is a tool I use on my job. I don&#8217;t really want to ride one off the job as I ride all day. Operating any motorcycle is demanding (1000% attention) and I don&#8217;t want to do that when I&#8217;m not on the job.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I can&#8217;t turn off the job.&#8221;  That is, regardless of what motorcycle I am on, if I am on a motor, I behave like I am trained and when I see a flagrant infraction while I am riding a personal motorcycle, I can&#8217;t make a traffic stop. That is frustrating, so I won&#8217;t put myself in the position of not being a cop on a motorcycle. (Heard from several officers who have said this one way or another).<\/li>\n<li>on my salary?  I can&#8217;t afford a personal bike, insurance, and maintenance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There ARE motorcops who own and ride a personal motorcycle, just not as many as one would think.  My cop friends who own and ride a personal bike ride:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a civilian version of a motorcycle similar to the one they ride at work.  For example, cops who ride a Harley on the job often own and ride a Harley off the job. Same with BMWs. Not sure about other, newer, police bikes.<\/li>\n<li>other brands and models, too.  Not all cops ride the same machine they ride on the job. Some appreciate having something different to ride &#8212; particularly those who have trouble &#8220;turning off the job.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>sport or adventure bikes &#8212; including dirt bikes and ATVs. Again, just to ride something completely different.<\/ul>\n<p>In my personal experience, the (few) motorcops with whom I ride regularly while they are on their personal bikes all ride a Harley on the job and own and ride a Harley off the job.  Most have the same model &#8212; for example, they ride a Harley Ultra on the job, and own a civilian version of a Harley Ultra for off-the-job use.  But this is only my observation from my limited sphere of about 10 cop friends who do both &#8212; ride a motorcycle on and off the job.<\/p>\n<p>Life is short:  ride!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This question, &#8220;what kind of motorcycles do motor cops ride off duty?&#8221; was recently entered into a search engine and was directed to this blog, but to a post that did not answer that question. I am not a cop, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=5353\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cop-boots"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}