The STUPID Laws That Make THIS a ‘Bicycle’

E-Bikes are becoming more popular, but some of them aren’t really bicycles at all. We take a dive into why some companies have added pedals and a drivetrain to what is essentially a battery-powered moped to evade regulations.

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This is a bicycle legally speaking. See, it has pedals. Of course, you can’t actually use them. The seat gets in the way and your shoe hits the kickstand on every revolution. But we’re just splitting hairs here. After all, you can use the throttle on this bicycle. [Music] I call this a TMBM, Teenage Mutant Bike Lane Marauder. You’ll find these all over the internet with huge tires, dual motors, and of course, token cranks, and a whole lot of them are sold in the USA due to what we legally regard as a bicycle. And bicycling advocates are often tongue-tied on this topic. On the one hand, this is affordable and may replace a car. But on the other hand, it creates a lot of confusion. Bicycles that look like this one are causing a public outcry across the country right now. Everyone, including New York City mayoral candidates, are uttering the word ebike in not a good way. When I’m at town halls, this what I hear about it. All these different vehicles have been in bike lanes and on our streets. We’re going to lower the speed limit to 15 m an hour because that’s what safety is all about. All while somehow approving 16 ft long, 500 lb cargo quads with token cranks for bike lane use. And it’s these token cranks that are causing so much confusion. In fact, it’s so confusing that many of you might not even know what confusion I’m talking about. So, today I’ll break down what makes this legally a bicycle, why many of these TMBBMs are not legally bicycles, and why that can have disastrous consequences. I’m Seth from Burn Peak, and I’m going to ruin some high school kids lives. [Music] Let’s start with the eBike classification system here in the US, which can vary at the state and local level. The Consumer Product Safety Act defines a low-speed electric bicycle as a two or three-w wheeled cycle with fully operable pedals, an electric motor under 750 W, which is insane, and a top speed of 20 mph on motor power alone. This has pedals. Fully operable is up for debate. It’s limited to 20 mph and it has two wheels. So, it checks out as a class 2 ebike. That means you can ride it on public roads without a license, registration, or insurance. And to be perfectly honest, that’s great. I think people should have the freedom to use small, affordable electric vehicles to get around town without the government’s nose in their business. But we need to find a way to let people have their freedom while drawing a clearer line between this and an electric moped. For example, this bike has two motors, 1,500 W, and these kids look like trouble. This TMBBM is not a bicycle, not even legally speaking. And yet, it has the same token pedals and cranks as this one. So, if the pedals don’t make it legal or change its classification, then why does it have them? And what is it classified as anyway? Well, you see, that’s where things can get confusing, and the confusion is often fatal. I’ll bring you up to speed with the diet version of ebike classification in the United States. Class 1 ebikes have pedal assist up to 20 mph. Class 2 ebikes have throttles up to 20 mph. Class 3 ebikes have pedal assist up to 28 mph. Go beyond that and you’re in moped territory, which varies by locality in terms of the exact speed, power, and whether or not it has pedals. But one thing is pretty clear across the board. When you surpass 35 mph, it’s a motorcycle which requires a driver’s license, registration, and insurance. Horsepower versus wattage are sometimes interpreted differently from state-tostate, but the speeds are somewhat consistent. And so that AliExpress, Black Warrior they’re marketing to teenagers, that straddles the line between moped and motorcycle. It’s not even close to a bicycle. But because moped laws vary so wildly, manufacturers put pedals on all of them just to cover their bases. And so, as a result of dumb, outdated laws, many people don’t even know that they’re doing anything wrong. [Music] Because the truth is that most consumers don’t know anything about ebike classification. So, they buy what is legally a moped or even a motorcycle, and they treat it like a bicycle. They let their 14-year-old ride it to school with nothing but a foam helmet, if that. It weighs a lot more than a bicycle. It doesn’t maneuver like a bicycle. It doesn’t stop like a bicycle. It doesn’t look like a bicycle. And legally, it’s not a bicycle. And as the power continues increasing, indeed, you get to actual motorcycle territory, and it still looks exactly like this. Yet, motorcyclists are expected to follow all the same laws as motorists, and they’re subject to the same fees and consequences. But a high school kid can buy a TMBBM on Facebook Marketplace, and their parents will be none the wiser. But often times, it’s the parents who buy the freaking thing, and that’s concerning, too. In Santa Barbara, California, ebike collisions have increased year after year, reaching 107 in 2024. This article on SFGate is extremely concerning, especially the quotes from a trauma surgeon, Dr. Ma. Ma notes, “Children are learning how to ride ebikes before riding on pedal bikes, skipping critical lessons about bicycle safety along the way. That coupled with the heaviness of the motors and batteries on ebikes can add to the danger.” Now, the first part of this is annoying. the fact that cities like Santa Barbara have instituted no ride areas, age limits for ebikes, and all sorts of regulations, which I’ll argue in a moment, are redundant. But the other part is sometimes fatal, and many of the so-called ebikes Dr. Ma is referencing, would legally be considered mopeds and indeed motorcycles. Now, I find it necessary to pause for a moment and reiterate my support for micromobility and indeed actual motorcycles. I’m pro ebikes and although I poke fun at Teenage Mutant bikeway marauders, I have no problem with them other than their misuse. Many people use these responsibly for hunting and fishing and transportation around town. But anytime you say something critical about electric bicycles, someone on Facebook tries to sidestep the point you’re making and call you ableist or classist. But it should be obvious by now that this video has nothing to do with assist of devices or the affordability of transportation. It’s about a confusing and outdated classification system that makes it easy for manufacturers to accidentally or intentionally obuscate the true nature of their thing with pedals. I’m arguing that it’s confusing, potentially dangerous, and clearly wasteful. And at the local level, it’s getting even more confusing. This is what’s referred to as a cargo quad. And to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Amazon has a fleet of these in New York and they have people pretty divided. Having ridden a bicycle in New York City recently, I felt a lot of anxiety in the bike lane. There was always somebody coming up behind me with a 40 mph ebike all impatient. I could hear them huffing and puffing like I was an inconvenience to them on my, you know, bike. On the other hand, these cargo quads are limited to 15 mph. They’re actually less threatening. And some people say it could lead to fewer vans and trucks on the road. But something about it still rubs me the wrong way as bicyclists keep getting squeezed out of the lanes and greenways they once fought to build. But I mentioned these cargo quads to make one thing clear. If 16 ft long, 4 foot wide box trucks with 500 lb of cargo can be considered bicycles, then things are only getting more confusing. And things are also getting ridiculously wasteful. If you look at those cargo quads, they still have those stupid cranks and pedals as if they’re doing anything. [Music] If there ever was a waste of a bicycle drivetrain, I understand that the future might look different, but can we at least do it honestly? Not only does this create confusion, but it’s ridiculous. You’re going to pedal this home if you run out of batteries. Bet. We’re going to turn off this battery, settle in, and see what it takes to propel this Teenage Mutant bikeway marauder. [Music] So, even when this thing is in pedal assist mode, the pedals and cranks just kind of act as an onoff switch for the motor. And so, it’s really easy to do, but there’s no way that anybody is using pedal assist on this thing. It is amazingly exhausting and awkward to use them to propel the bike. And so I think just removing these throttles in the United States would force manufacturers to make, I don’t know, actual bikes that you can pedal and would remove a lot of the ambiguity. This is just absolutely ridiculous. Like I don’t know, maybe I’m going 8 miles an hour right now and I feel absolutely exhausted and my left foot keeps getting knocked off the pedals because of this freaking kickstand. I think you get my point. We’re putting cranks on everything with wheels and a motor and calling them all bicycles. As a result, people are so confused. They think we need new laws to counter a new problem. But they’re misdiagnosing the problem altogether. Cities like Santa Barbara, California defined the problem as high-powered ebikes terrorizing the streets. And so their solution was to enact measures against high-powered ebikes. They may have at least in part misdiagnosed the problem. The problem is not high-powered ebikes. problem is normal powered motorcycles being purchased by people who think they’re ebikes. The result is unregistered vehicles ridden in places where they were never allowed in the first place by riders too young to legally operate them. Even older riders are riding uninsured or without plates, and most of them don’t even know it. So, if local authorities had the tools to determine exactly what the heck they were looking at, they may be able to enforce the laws that have already been on the books for decades, instead of grouping all this crap together with bicycles. So, there are two problems. The first is that few people actually know the law. And the second is that the law is difficult to enforce because all the bikes look the same. And as a cyclist who especially loves his analog bikes, I feel like I’m waking up from some kind of fever dream. Pedals are not supposed to cause confusion. They’re supposed to propel your bike forward. Now, sadly, I’m mostly out of helpful suggestions, but it’s worth taking a look at our friends across the pond. European countries have more or less gotten ahead of this issue by enacting much lower power thresholds. While our ebikes are below 750 watts, most of Europe considers a pedle over 250 watts a moped, which needs to be registered and insured. Notably, there’s no such thing as a throttle ebike in Europe either. That wouldn’t be an ebike. It would be something else. And how did throttles even become a thing? To be fair, it’s widely known that those cranks are nothing more than throttle onoff switches. You guys can fact check me on the specifics, but it seems like differentiating between a legal bicycle and a moped is a lot easier in Europe than it is here. But the United States is not Europe. See, we’re way behind European countries when it comes to bicycling infrastructure. So indeed, a lot of these get mixed in with vehicular traffic, often in places where drivers don’t expect to see cyclists at all. There’s a section of country road that I’ve pedal before on my gravel bike, and often times I need to sprint close to 30 m an hour to get through something gnarly before cars catch up. The Bikeway Marauder has a hard limit of 20 m an hour. No hope of making it go any faster. It’s like an old Buick. And so to mix your bike in with car traffic, sometimes you do need to get it to go a little bit faster. And most people can’t sprint close to 30. And so although the European model might not be ideal here on modified, we need the ability to easily differentiate between motorcycles and bicycles. And on that note, it’s time we made our Teenage Mutant bikeway marauder into something more honest. First of all, this appears to go a little bit faster than 20, which means it’s not legally a class 2 eBike. It’s truly dishonest. But would anybody ever stop me on this thing? and check. No, not here because it looks like everything else. It’s the dishonesty that I have a problem with. Not this. I must sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but I actually don’t have a problem with a 20 mph electric moped that’s legal everywhere. No registration, no license. I’m fine with that. And we could have a productive discussion about making that legal and not requiring the pedals. It’s the pedals, the cranks, it’s all this. It’s the loophole that I’m pissed off about because it’s the source of the confusion. The wholesale use of a loophole to make these as widespread as normal bicycles. These are exactly the same thing as a doctor’s note that allows an emotional support animal in a restaurant. It’s just designed to take something that shouldn’t be somewhere somewhere. But because we’ve decided to allow these dishonestly instead of honestly, they’re commonplace and we see them everywhere. We’re used to seeing mopeds and motorcycles with useless cranks and pedals. So, big surprise, you can put useless cranks and pedals on an actual motorcycle and fly right under the radar. So, here we are. Bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles all individually were never a problem. But now, they’re all mashed together into one thing, and they are a problem. Let’s get this back to the shop. Right. If throttles were limited to like 10 m an hour or 15 mph, then they wouldn’t make these because they would have to make it possible to pedal this seat and all this nonsense wouldn’t be able to work. They would have to make a bicycle and then we could tell them apart. And then these could look like what I’m about to make it into. Like here, I already know that it can’t make it up this hill without me pedaling. And then I can barely pedal. And then at some point I’m just going to get off of it and turn the throttle as I hike up the driveway with it. And the frustrating part is I’ve pedled a bicycle up this driveway many times and I can get it up to the top. A nice lightweight bicycle with a proper adjustable seat and pedals that actually work. You can pedal up stuff. But this in between can’t get up the driveway with the motor because they have to limit it to make it legal. And then it can’t get up the driveway with the pedals because the pedals don’t actually do anything. [Music] there. Now it’s on us. Now it looks like what it actually is, an electric motorcycle. But uh now I’m going to have to go to the DMV and get insurance. And maybe I should just put the cranks back on and sell it on Facebook Marketplace. So, if you’re a high school kid and I ruined your life, just remember I’ve been begging your parents to buy you a mountain bike for like the last 10 years. The difference between a motorcycle and a bicycle should not be difficult. You should be able to just look at it and tell. But the truth is that legally it’s not so clear. And so, at the very least, I hope that we can have a productive discussion about it. Thanks for coming along with me today. I hope you learned something. And if you didn’t, I hope you at least found this video entertaining. Thanks for riding with me today and I’ll see you next