Electric bikes are booming in popularity in just about every demographic in the US. From teens riding to school all…
Other than my personal annoyance with the 750w limit and not an acceleration curve, this was going to happen eventually.
They are just defining when one becomes a motorcycle or scooter and that was definitely needed.
Yeah, current laws just don’t adequately address e-bikes. Like in my state, if it has pedals and the motor is less than 50cc, you can use roads but don’t need a license or insurance. But that means dick for an electric bike with pedals and an motor rated in watts
Seems like a mostly reasonable change though I think classifying based on watts is not the best idea. If more states codify classifications then micromobility will be more accepted.
I ride my bike on a mixed-use canal path and people are blasting by on e-bikes well over 20 mph (32 kph). With so many folks walking along wearing headphones/earbuds, it’s just a matter of time before someone gets hit. There’s no posted speed limit that I’ve ever seen, and enforcement relies on people calling 911 and complaining. Technology always outpaces regulation.
I ride my ebike on mixed use paths on my way to work. My personal policy is to treat it as a class 1 in that case, and not exceed 24 kph. When passing pedestrians, this drops to 20 or lower, depending on the circumstances (e.g. can I get their attention with the bell, are small children/unleashed dogs involved, etc.).
Yesterday, I saw someone shoot past me on an ordinary bike. I briefly sped up to match his speed and checked my speedometer. He was doing 36 kph. In fairness, regular bikes don’t tend to come with speedometers, so he may have had no idea how fast he was moving.
I have also seen ebikes going well over 32 kph though. Mine is software limited to top out at that for electric assist, but the cap can easily be lifted with the phone app. I have elected not to do so. I’m a commuter. I just want to get to work. Not trying to win any races.
I’ve been pretty outspoken about my support for high powered ebikes and scooters, but 70mph sounds like too much. At those kinds of speeds you’re one pothole from instant death.
No different than gasoline bike
Well, every person I’ve seen whipping along at 40+ mph on an ebike did not have full protective gear. Also compared to motorcycles ebikes have much thinner tires and lighter builds. Also you need a license to ride a motorcycle.
Plenty of motorcycle riders ride without any gear. But if you’re referring to the stand on scooters, than yeah, that is a death trap lol
They’re called organ donors though, riding without protection is not smart.
You’re not taking a gasoline bicycle up to that speed either.
If you mean motorcycles, they’re built using much more… significant parts. The wheels alone are like 10x the mass of a typical bicycle wheel, giving it significantly more stability. Everything else is built to be more capable of speed as well. It’s not a good comparison.
I wonder how much range you would get running your tricked out ebike at 70 mph? I bet you would burn through battery pretty fast. I say this after researching e-motorcycles awhile back. I was disappointed that most of the affordable offerings topped out at around 100 km range or less, where my use case would have been inter-city. I have an e-bike for the city I’m perfectly happy with. But then I found someone on a forum mentioning that you could more than double the e-motorcycle range if you restrict yourself to city speeds to cut the wind drag.
