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This reeks of discrimination. Someone should sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Electrical assistance helps individuals who suffer from bad knees or other physical issues that prevent them from using bikes effectively. As long as the assistance keeps the bike well within the range of "normal" bike speed/power, they should be treated under the law like pure mechanical bikes.

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> As long as the assistance keeps the bike well within the range of "normal" bike speed/power

It doesn't. There are fast e-bikes out there. Recently I was out running on a country side road. I was passed by some guy testing an e-bike, going astonishingly fast. Knowing the exact distances along that road (it's exactly a mile long, and I know where the half mile split is), I clocked how fast it took him to get to from the half mile mark to the one mile point (crossroads) where he stopped and turned around. He was doing between 50-60km/h, taking some 30 seconds to go 800 meters.

Didn't catch the make of the e-bike.

I heard that there are supposed to be speed limits in these things, but if so, it seems people are able to circumvent them.

Some people will live with hardware throttled to 25 km/h that can inherently do double, some will find workarounds to tap into its true potential.

[Edit: that aforementioned rider wasn't pedaling, by the way.]

That's not really anything outrageous - a serious cyclist can easily hit that speed on a mile on a UCI-spec bicycle (i.e. non-electric).

Banning all electric bikes seems a little over the top though, surely? The same argument can be made that all trucks should be banned because some have been tampered with to exceed the max speed limit.

You don't even have to tamper with a car to exceed the speed limit.

How about tampering with a tachograph so that you can avoid having to take your legally mandated rest breaks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachograph#Tampering

These are probably the kind that you have seen:

https://www.fietsenwinkel.nl/fietsen/-/elektrische_fietsen/s...

They're quick of the mark too, and with the limiter disabled they'll be a lot quicker than the stock 45 km/h.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/state-electric-b... Covers the laws. Importantly: “”” At the federal level, a 2002 law enacted by Congress, HB 727, amended the Consumer Product Safety Commission definition of e-bikes. The law defined a low-speed electric bicycle as “A two- or three-wheeled vehicle with fully operable pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts (1 h.p.), whose maximum speed on a paved level surface, when powered solely by such a motor while ridden by an operator who weighs 170 pounds, is less than 20 mph.” The federal law permits e-bikes to be powered by the motor alone (a “throttle-assist” e-bike), or by a combination of motor and human power (a “pedal-assist” e-bike). “””

However, it’s very easy to buy a wheel with a built-in motor that is more than that:

http://www.hi-powercycles.com/hpc-5000w-hub-motor-complete-k...

Get two of those and you’ve got a 10KW electric motorcycle that could probably hit 70+MPH easily.

There are also kits in the 2KW-4KW range that are much cheaper (~$500). If you ban these, you’d have to ban all electric motors, and “winding wire around spinning apparatus”...it’d be very untenable, and there are already laws in place governing max speed and power. We have the same thing for emissions in some states, and enforcement is slim to none. Basically, you have to just count on people using it responsible, just like with motorcycles / electric skateboards / electric wheelchairs / snowmobiles / dirt bikes / gopeds / mini bikes / pit bikes / go karts / pocket bikes / powered paragliders / RC cars etc etc.

How will EBikes be significantly different? All of these have legal uses and a small percentage of owners using them outside of their legally allowed scope.

I don’t think it’s a big enough problem to warrant more regulation. Also, more regulation != more enforcement. Will police carry portable dynos or ammeters and measure the output of your ebike? More likely is that idiots keeping up with traffic at 50MPH will get ticketed by police who notice. It’d actually be great IMO if you COULD have a light electric motorcycle that could go ~35-40, plate it like a motorcycle, and be allowed to ride on normal bike lanes and trails as long as you keep it under 15MPH or whatever the trail speed limit is.

Just like with “drones”, these have existed for decades, but now they’re a “problem” because any punter with a few hundred bucks can buy one ready to do stupid things with at a local shop or off Amazon.

For the most part they are. In CA anyway, engines under a certain size or some similar metric is used, are considered equal to a regular bike.

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