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'70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

electrek.co

61–70 of 114 posts

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#61

Unless a cop actually sees you doing a ridiculous speed they aren't going to check for P/W ratio or motor output Electric scooters are illegal in the UK, but police don't have time or inclination to stop their widespread usage on public roads, and you're safe to ride past them unless you're doing something stupid. So many things like this have people getting away with it that the laws are just ignored eventually. Whe…

Why not? We have a TON of ebikes i Norway and the cops regularly do checkpoints of suspected chippers in the main commute routes. They have a little threadmill thing similar to what chiptuners use when tuning car engines that measure torque, watt and top speed.

Paying cops to run a checkpoint and dyno test bikes?!! That seems like a huge waste of government resources unless the goal is to save money on other enforcement areas by instilling a message of "don't you dare goose step an inch out of line, we're watching". I suspect it's more about pandering to police supporting demographics and looking busy than it is about enforcing anything.

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#62
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How fast can a normal person riding a normal-style bike with modified gears go across the salt flats? I feel like it's obvious that capability would be measured with a fixed level of user input on a fixed course/dynamo.

2018 had one pro rider do 183 MPH per https://www.bikeradar.com/news/cycling-land-speed-record-sma... I'd wager most weekend spandex warriors could break 100 MPH peak.

When you're drafting a dragster so close you're partly inside it I'm going to go ahead and say that doesn't count for my question.

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#63
post #46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an e-bike. That's an e-moto. It is sold and marketed as an e-moto and has no pedals. Depending on the jusrisdiction. these can often only be legally ridden on private property since they aren't street legal motorcycles. Some jurisdiction may allow them to be used in public OHV areas.

I realized that and edited my comment with a link for one with pedals, bicycle saddle and 10kW power.

You've misunderstood that law.

> By law, an electric bicycle is a bicycle that (1) has operable foot pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts and (2) qualifies as a class 1, class 2, or class 3 bicycle

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2024/rpt/pdf/2024-R-0154.pdf

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#64

Unless a cop actually sees you doing a ridiculous speed they aren't going to check for P/W ratio or motor output Electric scooters are illegal in the UK, but police don't have time or inclination to stop their widespread usage on public roads, and you're safe to ride past them unless you're doing something stupid. So many things like this have people getting away with it that the laws are just ignored eventually. Whe…

> Underfunded and under resourced police can't cope with the workload, for a change.

In the US, the issue is mostly cops in cars. I'm pretty fortunate that my city has cops on bikes in common biking areas. That has reduced a huge amount of bad behavior of people on ebikes.

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest generation of RAV4 has power of 176 kW (236 hp; 239 PS): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4#Sixth_generation_(... A fairly recent iteration of BMW S1000RR motorcycle has 152 kW (204 hp; 207 PS): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_S1000RR#2019_(K_67) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_production_mot... One can set lap records, the other cannot. Power-to-weight can determine performanc…

I don't think you can compare a car and a motorcycle that easily. Especially at high speeds where air resistance is so important.

The current-gen Miata is 135 kW (181 hp; 184 PS):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5_(ND)

It's about ~third of the weight of the RAV4. Which one do you think accelerates from zero faster (not even reaching "high speeds")?

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest generation of RAV4 has power of 176 kW (236 hp; 239 PS): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4#Sixth_generation_(... A fairly recent iteration of BMW S1000RR motorcycle has 152 kW (204 hp; 207 PS): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_S1000RR#2019_(K_67) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest_production_mot... One can set lap records, the other cannot. Power-to-weight can determine performanc…

I don't think you can compare a car and a motorcycle that easily. Especially at high speeds where air resistance is so important.

I mean, you can, but it's not apples to oranges. I would feel like a car with 200hp would be a sporty fun car to drive, but I will go down fighting if you tried to force me to ride a 200hp motorcycle.

Then again, that's in the 1000+cc category so it would be a big sporty bike, but still, that's a capital S Scary amount of power for the average non-thrillseeker like myself.

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#67
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2018 had one pro rider do 183 MPH per https://www.bikeradar.com/news/cycling-land-speed-record-sma... I'd wager most weekend spandex warriors could break 100 MPH peak.

When you're drafting a dragster so close you're partly inside it I'm going to go ahead and say that doesn't count for my question.

Certainly crazy circumstances. But, it's just a bicycle.

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#68

I personally like the EU rule (168/2013) on e-bikes for this: > pedal cycles with pedal assistance which are equipped with an auxiliary electric motor having a maximum continuous rated power of less than or equal to 250 W, where the output of the motor is cut off when the cyclist stops pedalling and is otherwise progressively reduced and finally cut off before the vehicle speed reaches 25 km/h [15.5 mph] * https://en…

The other part that's missing in the US is infrastructure.

It's taken a generation for acoustic bike lanes to be standard infrastructure in the US, and they've mostly been an exhaust valve. I spent the 2010s bike commuting in SF, and even at rush hour you'd have at-most a dozen bikes waiting at a stoplight. In part because we still need to do so much to make urban cycling as safe as it is enjoyable, even in inner cities, cars outnumber bikes.

Over the last few years, motorbikes have become desirable at a scale the US is unfamiliar with and unequipped to service. They're a cool toy for kids, a useful tool for commuters, and the lowest barrier to entry for deliveries. In the same way it's not safe to mix someone in the foam hat we call a bicycle helmet with multiton metal vehicle traffic, it's not safe for motorbike riders either. They have too much speed and inertia to mix comfortably with bicycle riders, but not enough protection to mix with cars and trucks. Worse, car drivers seem to have forgotten how to drive. Red light running is no longer rare, and more drivers seem to be watching the phone in their laps than the traffic ahead.

Filtering and lane splitting doesn't solve the big-car-vs-tiny-motorbike problem, but it at least helps. Unfortunately it's mostly a California thing. A few states are experimenting with reduced flavors of it, but safety (in the form of filtering/splitting) is still at odds with the law in most states.

There's a principle in Dutch traffic engineering that each grade of mass/vulnerability needs its own right of way: Pedestrians have crosswalks. Bicycles have cycletracks. Cars have roads. Trains have rails. Each one is vulnerable to all the bigger ones and a threat to all the smaller ones, so they each have a solution. Our cities need to bring that approach to motorbikes.

Unfortunately, this goes against the grain of race/class/tradition. The people in power tend to move through the world in cars, so accommodating other modes is an unfamiliar nuisance to them. (See also: the decades it took for bike lanes to become standard.) NYPD has been actively harassing cyclists this year because the nepobaby chief of police's heiress mom is afraid of them.

Delivery riders tend to be immigrants. They're willing to work hard jobs for low wages, and there's a black market of Uber Eats profiles that they can rent without work permits [1]. They can be intimidating - looking foreign and not speaking English. They learned to ride in places with less regimented road cultures than the US (places where motorbikes are expected to filter to the front of traffic). Being sandwiched between cars is both dangerous and slow - both counter to the instincts of someone who gets rewarded for completing a delivery quickly. Of course they break the law - filtering, riding on sidewalks, riding the wrong way…

What cities need to do is give well behaved motorbikes a practical avenue. Maybe there's a motorbike lane next to the bike lane. Maybe filtering is legalized. There's plenty of room to find a solution here. Give them a safe and reasonable option, then ticket the people who continue to break the law.

Instead, we're likely to be stuck with obsolete laws for a while. Immigrants speeding through traffic and riding on the sidewalk are not a sympathetic constituency. But until the law catches up to the technology and the culture, this is going to be a mess.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V9ypoULc0I

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#69
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're drafting a dragster so close you're partly inside it I'm going to go ahead and say that doesn't count for my question.

Certainly crazy circumstances. But, it's just a bicycle.

It's a bicycle that doesn't have to deal with air resistance, which sidesteps much of my question.

Re: '70 MPH e-bikes' prompt one US state to change its laws

#70
post #27

I have a JackRabbit OG e-bike [0] (really technically an electric scooter, since it doesn't have pedals). I recently put an aftermarket controller on it to allow for speeds past 20mph, and to allow for higher current to the 350W motor (accepting the risk of increased wear and burn out). It's a ton of fun to ride, can get up to 30-35mph or so though I never take it that high (dangerous). I mostly just use the increase…

Can confirm. Teenagers on e-bikes is easily the number one complaint on suburban Nextdoor right now. It's like catnip for boomers.
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