Now substitute 900 pounds of steel and chrome, a revving engine, a police officer and a precise arrangement of orange traffic cones.


The result is a motorcycle rodeo, just one of the events at the Pennsylvania Police Olympics held in Lancaster County Thursday, Friday and Saturday and hosted by the Lancaster Bureau of Police.


It might be hard to believe, but an experienced, trained motorcycle cop can maneuver the almost one-ton machine he sits atop with the finesse of skating greats Kurt Browning or Brian Boitano.


And in an approximately four-hour competition Saturday at the county’s Public Safety Training Center in East Hempfield Township, about eight police officers from around the state showed how closely they could meet that ideal. Officers from Lancaster city, Allentown, Hampton Township, Middletown, Muhlenberg and West Reading competed in the parking lot of the training center, where a course of orange cones was set up for five events. Each officer went through the course four times. Each officer’s highest score determined his standing.


“This is a great bunch of guys. Even though they make it look easy, it’s very difficult,” said Sgt. Clark Bearinger of the city police, one of the competitors in the motorcycle rodeo. Bearinger is in his 12th year with the police department.


Bearinger, who has ridden a motorcycle for 30 years, said it wasn’t until he took the Harley-Davidson course that “I knew what it really was to ride a motorcycle.” Bearinger won a gold medal in event two and a bronze medal for the overall competition; he was the only one of the city’s six trained motorcycle cops to participate.


The skills the officers use to maneuver the cone course are ones that they need to get through traffic jams while on the job, he said.


“It’s not uncommon during competition to lay them (motorcycles) over,” he said at the beginning of the day. That proved to be true many times.


So just how do you get a 900-pound motorcycle upright again? You use your leg strength to walk it back up again, Bearinger said. The officers backed themselves against the bikes and then used their legs to push them upright.


Although it is frightening to see the officers fall over with the huge bikes, in most cases Saturday the injuries were minimal. In training they learn to keep their legs in place so one leg doesn’t get caught under the bike. They can then roll or slide away from the bike.


But Sgt. Robert Givler of Middletown police department, a veteran motorcycle cop, suffered a possible broken ankle when his 700-pound Kawasaki fell over.


He was in a turn during his second round when he was trying to miss hitting the last cone. He said he couldn’t recover, and he put his foot down to try to kick himself back up when the cycle went down on his leg. It took several officers to lift the motorcycle off of him. An ambulance was called, but after lying on the macadam for five minutes or so, Givler got up to applause and got back onto his bike to finish the round.


“He’s my hero,” one officer called as Givler drove into position.


Later, Givler said he was going to finish the competition. “It’s like riding a horse. If you get thrown off, you’ve got to get back on,” he said. He did continue, and again fell in the third round, but he rolled away from the bike. He got up and continued.


Givler’s wife, Leslie, said he had told her and their children Friday not to be upset if he fell. But, she said, when the bike went down onto his leg, “it scared me half to death. I didn’t know what to expect.”


As the wife of a cop, Leslie said, “You have to just relax and know that things are going to happen.”


“Besides,” her husband chimed in, “I don’t call her when I go to the hospital.” Why wake her, he said, when he can tell her in the morning?


Givler’s roll-over brought to the surface the danger of the motorcycle cops’ jobs and had several of the wives talking. Julie Stokes of Blandon, whose husband, Dale, is a police officer with the Allentown police department, reassured her daughter that it wasn’t her father who fell. The family is understandably extra-sensitive to the possibility of injury. Dale Stokes was in a crash involving a tractor-trailer last August and broke his back. He was in a trauma unit for five days, she said. He decided almost immediately he was going to ride again, she said.


“It’s part of the understanding of what they are and what they do. … You just hope the good training they receive keeps them safe while they’re out there,” said Julie Stokes. Dale Stokes won a silver medal in event four.


Val Lewis of Danielsville, who was at the competition with her husband, Brian, an officer with the Allentown police, said when they were married only a month, her husband ended up in a shootout with a serial killer; so that is always in the back of her mind.


“I never thought I’d have the strength to be married to anyone in law enforcement,” Val Lewis said, but he could be in another job and have something bad happen to him. Brian Lewis won a silver medal in event one, a bronze in event two, event three and event five, as well as the silver medal for the competition overall.


Dave Dickson, another officer from the Allentown police competing Saturday, had a few problems in his events. He, too, fell over, but also had to repair his throttle after one of his runs. Saturday was his first time competing in a motorcycle rodeo.


Falling is “all part of the action,” Dickson said. The three-year motorcycle cop is part of Allentown’s full-time motorcycle unit, which began about a year and a half ago. Dickson won a gold medal in event three and a silver medal in event five.


Eric Brenner, also of Allentown, won a bronze medal in event four.


One officer who described himself as “happy go lucky” certainly proved that as he whistled while competing in one of the events. Wayne Moreland of Muhlenberg Township in Berks County was competing for his first time. Moreland said he has been riding motorcycles since he was 8 years old and drag races motorcycles as a hobby. Moreland won a bronze medal in event one and a silver in event two.


West Reading Officer Wayne Holben, who won the most medals at the rodeo, has been a motorcycle cop for three years, but has recently become a K-9 cop. Saturday was his second competition. Holben won a gold medal for event one, a silver for event three, a gold for event four and event five and a gold for the overall competition.


Also competing was Chet Kline of the Township of Hampton police department, north of Pittsburgh, who has been a motorcycle cop for six years. He wants to get some of the Lancaster motorcycle cops to go to Pittsburgh next year to compete in the Olympics, which alternates between Lancaster and Pittsburgh each year.


The goal of the Pennsylvania Police Olympics is to promote physical fitness and camaraderie between all officers in all agencies, said Pat Rooney, president of the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Athletic Association, which sponsors the event.


Rooney said 350 officers from Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, New York and Connecticut attended the Olympics, which held many of its events at the Franklin & Marshall Alumni Health & Fitness Center.


Some of the other events in the Police Olympics are basketball, volleyball, mountain bike racing, golf, pistol and high-power rifle shooting, bench press, power lifting and a 5K race.


Many officers have come back year after year for the event now in its 23rd year, Rooney said. Some officers who brought their sons as children are now competing along side their sons, who are now police officers themselves.




Some of the other local winners from the results that were available Saturday include: Skeet and Trap Shooting, Sgt. Mark Heiser of city police, 12 medals; retired officer Tom Weber, city police, several medals; Two-on-Two Volleyball, Lancaster police, team of officers, Jose DeLaTorre and Todd Dickenson, second place; High-Powered Rifle, Roger Kreisher, East Cocalico Township police, silver; 5K road race, Eric Schmitt, Ephrata Borough police, silver; Golf, two-man team, Barry Weidman, Manheim Borough police chief, and James Walsh, West Lampeter Township police chief; and Road Cycling, Mick Whitaker, Lancaster police, gold. The results for all events were not available Saturday.





mcoole@lnpnews.com