When Clairton police Officer Ian Lucas and his partner spotted a man wanted on an attempted homicide charge, they were able to approach him quickly and quietly before surprising and apprehending him.

The officers are among eight in Clairton certified to patrol on bicycles, and Officer Lucas said the smaller, agile, quick-handling bicycles offered a number of advantages over car and foot patrols.

The 21-speed bikes can navigate narrow passageways where drug dealers do business and teens spray-paint the backs of buildings, for instance.

"[Criminals] can see your car coming a mile away," he said.

Officer Jodi Leitzell likes that bicycles allow her to be out with the public.

"You hear a lot more things on the bicycle," she said, adding that, with Clairton's steep hills, "it's a really good way to stay in shape."

Officer Leitzell is one of four Clairton police officers who recently finished a four-day, 32-hour intensive cycling course through the International Police Mountain Bike Association.

That brings to eight the number of bicycle-certified officers in the 2.2-square-mile city. The other officers were certified last year.

One of the latter, Chief Robert Hoffman, said officers could ride in heavy traffic, perform emergency maneuvers, and ascend and descend environmental obstacles.

There is also increased visibility, as he learned firsthand in an arrest last year. From their bicycles, he and another officer spotted drug dealing in the foyer of a building, an activity they could not have seen from a car. They pedaled to the site of the drug transaction and made arrests.

The idea for the bicycle patrols was that of former interim police Chief John Pandullo, who is still on the force.

The bicycles cost about $1,000 each, and were purchased through a mix of public and donated funds.

Chief Hoffman expects to field at least one eight-hour shift a day, weather permitting, with two cyclists, who will ride in pairs for safety reasons.

Officer Leitzell, who said people freely approached officers on bicycles with questions, said the most challenging part of the training was jumping over 3-foot-tall barriers and riding the bicycle in circles inside a box to learn the kind of control that's needed in heavily-populated, tight areas, such as at a fair.

Students underwent classroom training on bicycle maintenance and traffic laws, and rode on streets and on an obstacle course.

They were taught self-defense, such as how to use the bicycle as a shield, and to strike with it if need be.

But the real training, the on-the-job kind, is yet to come.

"Like everything that's new, we're learning," Chief Hoffman said.