Berlin advice

A couple of police on bikes will improve the lot of the general urban cyclist. What makes you think they'd target you for brakes and reflectors instead of using the bike to transport them to places where crimes are being committed in a busy city.

They will do that in Germany, as the regulations require these things. That's a well-known problem, and I'm certainly among those who think that the regulations should be changed in quite a few ways, as they were drawn up a long time ago when you didn't have anything like the variety of bikes and styles that you have now. Police on bikes, though, is a good thing. As I said in my earlier post, the attitudes of cycling police will also change quite a lot as they gain more experience and understanding of cycling.