By Mark Reynolds
This past year the Lloyd Police Department brought back bike patrols on the Hudson Valley Rail Trail and the Walkway Over the Hudson.
Chief James Janso said they had bike patrols in the mid 1990s, “and then it kind of fell by the wayside unfortunately,” sometimes due in part to getting the needed training to be a bike patrol officer.
Chief Janso said now is a great time to bring back the program, especially with the increase of the number of people and activities on the rail trail and on the walkway.
After meeting with representative of the Rail Trail to listen to their concerns, Chief Janso knew it was time to bring back the patrols. He had a few bikes in storage at the department, and Mark Elia, of GPA’S Bike Shop, donated his labor to fix them up for the department along with contributing helmets and bells.
Janso said Elia recently went further by donating two brand new Trek bikes while the old ones will be decommissioned.
“They are more modern and upgraded,” he said.
Janso said his officers have received positive feedback from people they meet while on patrol, “so hopefully it’s the start of a new endeavor for us.” He said recently Officer Anthony Kalimeras has joined Sgt. Jesse Vail and Officer Joshua Tucker doing patrols.
“It makes it easier to schedule now that I have three officers to choose from,” Chief Janso said. “I like to have two at a time on for safety reasons. With our guys up there, hopefully, it will be a presence and people will see them; 99 percent of the people are there for enjoyment.”
Elia said he decided to donate the new bikes to provide lighter bikes [21 pounds] and to give the officers the newest technology available.
“They have better gearing and better brakes,” Elia said. “They have disc brakes now vs. rim brakes before. You have 700 size wheels vs 26 size wheels, less rolling resistance, thus much faster bikes.”
Elia said the new bikes have 10 gears but it is a different range of gearing, saying that these are better than a 21 gear bike. He pointed out that the bike with 10 gears has a lot of teeth that provide better climbing power on steep hills and the smaller gears on them allows the rider to go faster.
Chief Janso said after receiving these new bikes, “it was definitely Christmas come early for the Town of Lloyd Police.”
Elia says there is no better feeling than to be able to provide these bikes to the department, noting that he once served as an officer for the town in the early 1980s. Janso kidded him, saying, “He’s got a little blue in him still.”
Elia said the public does not show enough appreciation for the difficult and dangerous jobs that Police Officers do every day.
“Somebody needs to show appreciation and that’s what we do,” Elia said.