San Franciscans are all too quick to jump down the throats of the fine men and women of the San Francisco Police Department. Because, more or less, it looks cool and sounds like the socially acceptable thing to do. But! More often than not, of course, they're pretty damn helpful. Even to our put-upon cyclists. Take for example, this true tale SFist reader Eric Freeman sent us:

I wanted to share a quick story in support of SF’s men in blue who I haven’t always been to fond of. [Sunday] around 4 PM I was moving a few things up from the crawl space under our house. As I was bring up a backpack and my girlfriends road bike I set the bike down on our porch so I could take the backpack inside. As I was making room for some more things in our entry way the winds we were having blew shut my front door. Less than 30 seconds later I opened the door to bring in the bike and it was gone. Yelling out that the bike was gone my girls face dropped as I ran out the door. I ran up our hill to Utah and didn’t see anyone in sight. I ran down the street to Potrero and few blocks off to the south I saw someone on a bike disappearing into the horizon. I bolted after him feeling hopeless and a little terrified to face my road warrior girl after I got her prized possession stolen.

Luckily, after sprinting two blocks, I stumbled across two officers on their dirt bikes just hanging on a corner. I quickly blurted out the crime in progress and one of the two officers took off in pursuit. In the meantime, I was able to give the officer with me a correct description of the bike and over the radio he confirmed his partner apprehended the thief three blocks down in front of SF General. Hats off to the men in blue for jumping into action and saving me from the doghouse back at home.

Way to go, SFPD.