Fine for riding e-bikes on trails in DC?

[jnva]

The thing is, I think tech like this is seriously awesome! Having that sort of power would enable people to undertake longer commutes via bike, and use roads that might be too unsafe on pure human power. Like I said, I'd much rather see people on e-bikes than in cars. Its just such a murky thing when it comes to multi-use infrastructure that has traditionally been for non-motorized traffic. Sure, the bikes commonly available today aren't really any less safe than human powered ones. I've chased a few e-bikes over the years, and aside from steeper uphills I could keep up alright with some effort. I get that you guys are probably perfectly polite trail users, and just want to get to work, same as me. Allowed or not, I would never give an e-bike rider any crap for riding on the W&OD, for example, as long as they weren't being colossal dicks. Buts its also almost certainly true that e-bikes will continue to get more powerful and cheaper. Just in the last 10 years things have advanced enormously, and electric propulsion and battery tech is being heavily invested in. I don't blame people for being resistant to changing the legality of things, at least in some circumstances.

I'm glad we are on the same page! The thing that pisses me off though is that I think battery technology has NOT advanced nearly as much as it should have in the last 10 years. Instead, we have cheap gasoline.

And batteries that you buy for ebikes are either RC lipo or defective cells that the car manufacturers don't use. I would much rather have a long lasting cell with a low c-rate than a high power cell. But these are all made for the auto industry.

I think we are at the beginning of the light electric vehicle revolution. I can't imagine getting back in my car wasting time in traffic ever again. I was hooked the first time I rode an ebike, after commuting for years (like since the mid 80's) on bicycles.

[jabberwocky]

I'm glad we are on the same page! The thing that pisses me off though is that I think battery technology has NOT advanced nearly as much as it should have in the last 10 years. Instead, we have cheap gasoline.

And batteries that you buy for ebikes are either RC lipo or defective cells that the car manufacturers don't use. I would much rather have a long lasting cell with a low c-rate than a high power cell. But these are all made for the auto industry.

I think we are at the beginning of the light electric vehicle revolution. I can't imagine getting back in my car wasting time in traffic ever again. I was hooked the first time I rode an ebike, after commuting for years (like since the mid 80's) on bicycles.

Funnily enough, some e-bike DIY folks are sourcing replacement hybrid car battery packs for e-bike use. The nissan leaf pack is apparently somewhat popular for that. Batteries (and the whole charging/BMS) are the tough part of DIY, but while things may not have progressed as far as we'd like, they have progressed quite a bit over the last decade.

As I mentioned earlier, I converted a sector 9 longboard to electric earlier this year (two 50mm brushless motors connected to the wheels with timing belts and driven by an RC ESC and controller). Its a blast!

[jnva]

http://greyborgusa.com/products-2/frames/

This is my next project. It's a perfect combination of full suspension and battery capacity. All DIY. I'm working on the battery, controller, BMS and variable regen braking. Hoping this will make commuting more comfortable than my old hardtail I'm using.

[peterw_diy]

as for who is riding with kids in tow, that should be obvious.

How's that? Am I supposed to lock my battery to the rack after dropping my kid off at school so that I can't "cheat" solo? Tow a conventional bike to school and lock the entire ebike after dropoff?

[mstone]

Maybe those people using reasonable ebikes on the trails don't want to be breaking the law.

Well, we clearly have a difference of opinion on the importance of law. I'm most interested in law as an expression of social objectives, and am far more concerned about social norms than the law itself. (As the social norms dictate actual behavior as well as enforcement.) To me, this is about setting the social norm: are the trails for people or machines? I think that the answer is that they are, and should be, for people and people-powered machines. Non people-powered machines like cars and motorcycles are right out. There's a gray area for devices that augment people-power but are basically indistinguishable from people-powered machines (on the theory that if they're indistinguishable, then who cares?) But until someone comes up with a way to clearly express that in law, my desire would be to see the basic concept that the trails are for people expressed, rather than clouding that simple concept.

I'm still open to the idea that a clear law could be written, but I'm certain that if you start talking about horsepower and speed limits you've lost--as the concept has become too complicated for ordinary people to grasp intuitively. You keep talking about federal e-bike rules, but I'd hazard a guess that you know more about those than anyone in any police department in the region. It's the kind of thing a policy wonk can love, but is not something that regular people will immediately understand when they observe and are told that certain electric motorcycles are ok. (Vs the current state when they can easily understand that the social norm is that it's ok if it's stealth enough that nobody notices.)

We generally only get enforcement against bikes when there's a collision, which makes sense: bikes don't pose enough risk to warrant the cost of preventative enforcement (as opposed to, say, cars). So when there's a collision on the trail, the authorities can look up the materials on the bike to see if it meets the standard. Or they can write the ticket and it can be challenged with documentation from the manufacturer. Either way, it's pretty easy.

We get enforcement when there's a collision, or when there are complaints. That's how I understand this to work: as long as everyone's behaving, everything is good. If there are complaints about electric motorcycles tearing up the trails, then the police will go out and have something to back up telling the electric motorcycles to get off the trail. You need a fairly general rule like that for complaint-based enforcement to work for this, because the police can understand it and can get results much more easily than they can try to observe specific dangerous behaviors. (I'd also love to see bike cops on the trails issuing citations for specific dangerous behaviors, but that's a really radical change in direction and training that seems unlikely to happen.) Yes I understand that this opens the door to biased enforcement and the possibility that safe ebike riders get caught up in a backlash--that's why I'd love to see some good language for a better law.

[Amalitza]

But those are all endangered by any bike going fast. Ebikes (that meet the federal definition or something close to it -- weight should also probably be a factor too) aren't any more dangerous for them.

Yes, but those are not what I was talking about. I was specifically responding to Dismal's question about overpowered ebikes and about why we might think differently about them on trails vs. roads. Overpowered I would assume indicating speeds and accelerations greater than the vast majority of people on purely human-powered bikes will be able to achieve or sustain. If an average cyclist is moving at, say, 12-15mph, an average jogger at 5-7mph, and an average walker at maybe 2mph, a 30mph power-assisted bike is going to have a greater speed differential compared to that 2mph walker on a MUP than compared to the average cyclist in a bike lane. What I'm saying is that when the 30mph and up capable ebikes become readily available and we have to decide where they're allowed, there are reasons-legitimate ones- for considering on-street bike infrastructure (which is not designed for pedestrian use) differently from MUPs (which are). I was not saying anything about currently available ebikes. For that matter, I wasn't saying anything about what the end result of these considerations ought to be, just that they are different.

[DismalScientist]

Actually, that wasn't my question. Mstone said that he saw the solution as sufficient infrastructure so that e-bikers would choose not to ride on trail and, instead, ride on on-street, presumably, bike infrastructure. My basic question is why is it appropriate that e-bikes shouldn't "terrorize" MUPs, but it is OK to "terrorize" on-street bicycle facilities. Wouldn't this problem get worse as e-bikes get more powerful?

It seems that we make artificial distinctions (pedals/no pedals, electric/fuel powered, HP, max speed) between vehicles and treat them differently based on specific infrastructure (MUPs, sidewalks, bike lanes, normal road lanes). Since I have not experience particularly rude behavior by e-bikers, I don't have strong opinions on any of this. So, I just sit back and enjoy everyone going at it.

[lordofthemark]

How's that? Am I supposed to lock my battery to the rack after dropping my kid off at school so that I can't "cheat" solo? Tow a conventional bike to school and lock the entire ebike after dropoff?

Okay, didn't think of that (that's what comes from never having dropped a kid off at school by bike) I guess you could avoid MUPs on the non-kid part of your ride, but that could be a significant hardship. Or we could count on discretion by LE to not enforce against someone with a trailer whether there are kids in it or not - but then we are back to MStone's approach of relying on discretion, and have not fully dealt with dasgeh's desire to be able to be fully compliant with the law as written. I suppose that leaves getting a parent pass of some kind from the school. Not sure that's a feasible approach.

[lordofthemark]

Actually, that wasn't my question. Mstone said that he saw the solution as sufficient infrastructure so that e-bikers would choose not to ride on trail and, instead, ride on on-street, presumably, bike infrastructure. My basic question is why is it appropriate that e-bikes shouldn't "terrorize" MUPs, but it is OK to "terrorize" on-street bicycle facilities. Wouldn't this problem get worse as e-bikes get more powerful?

I would see the distinction as being that on street bike facilities have relatively slow cyclists (cough, cough) and the occasional daring runner. While MUPs get walkers, including really slow ones, really inattentive ones etc (I would mention child cyclists - you do see some in bike lanes, but usually much more focused and skilled than the beginners on the MUPs.) So the speed differential is less, and the skills of the users greater. But yeah, at some point, if ebikes are basically battery powered motorcycles with pedals, one would wonder why they belong anywhere that a conventional motorcycle does not belong.

[mstone]

Actually, that wasn't my question. Mstone said that he saw the solution as sufficient infrastructure so that e-bikers would choose not to ride on trail and, instead, ride on on-street, presumably, bike infrastructure. My basic question is why is it appropriate that e-bikes shouldn't "terrorize" MUPs, but it is OK to "terrorize" on-street bicycle facilities. Wouldn't this problem get worse as e-bikes get more powerful?

I'm pretty sure I already responded to that. The basic difference is the lack of pedestrians and the expectation that on-street bike facilities are primarily transportation infrastructure, so there's an expectation that people are moving and behaving in transportation-predictable ways. (As opposed to the trails which are an uncomfortable hybrid of transportation and recreational facilities, and the expectation is that people will just randomly stop, wander aimlessly, etc.) There's also the factor that electric bikes are still going to be much more bikey than cars are (less weight differential, better visibility, need to pay attention, etc) so there's still a qualitative difference between them and a black SUV. Also, your presumption that high-powered electric bikes should ride primarily in bike infrastructure is questionable; there are a lot of roads I don't feel comfortable biking on (mostly because of the speed I can maintain up a hill from a stop) that I'd feel ok in riding with traffic if I were on a magic machine that could quickly get me up to 25 or 30 MPH. The real fight isn't going to be over MUPs, IMO, it's going to be over when you need to get a license & registration as a motorcycle.