Comment by lukan
15 hours ago
Ok, but I am talking about being able to drive in city traffic and keep up with cars and not be a blocker - and then go to the forest with my e-bike where I do mind the other people walking around there and drive adequate. Not possible with current legislation.
I can only drive my E-Bike with my car to the forest (like to many people do), or drive slowly there myself.
In Europe a class 1 ebike can't have a throttle and assist must be limited to 25km/h (it's 32km/h in the US). They can be faster and have a throttle, but then they are more like scooters in terms of licensing and insurance. If you go to most bike shops in Western Europe they will only have class 1 e-bikes. A class 1 bike is generally allowed everywhere a bike is.
While there are a lot of people riding more powerful bikes in Europe illegally, at least some countries are trying to crack down on them. In the US, it seems easier to buy class 2 and 3 e-bikes, and there seems to be a higher proportion of illegal bikes. It's an open secret which "class 1" bikes you can buy and then overclock easily.
So in Europe you mostly have class 1 e-bikes and obviously illegal (as in you can tell just by looking at them), but in the US you have these plus a lot of class 2 and 3 e-bikes, and overclocked class 1 e-bikes. The end result is most mountain bike trails in Europe allow class 1 e-bikes only, but in the US it's impossible to enforce class 1 only, so a lot of regions are trending towards banning all e-bikes from all trails. So be careful about wishing for a more powerful e-bike you can drive in traffic and mountain bike trails.