Day 335 of LA’s Vision Zero failure to end traffic deaths by 2025.
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At last, we get a little context for the rise in ebike injuries — although, as usual, there’s no distinction between injury rates for ped-assist ebikes and e-motorbikes.
According to the New York Times, Marin County worked to get California law changed after a 15-year old girl barely survived a fall while riding on the back of a friend’s ebike, prompting a local surgeon to look into rising injury rates.
As the pandemic continued, the number of e-bike accidents increased. “You would expect that,” Alfrey says, “because sales were skyrocketing.” Indeed, in 2022, over a million e-bikes were sold in the United States, up from 287,000 in 2019, according to the Light Electric Vehicle Association. But what really struck Alfrey and Maa was that e-bike injuries were far more serious than those sustained on conventional bikes. Maa says they were more like what’s seen in motorcycle crashes. A pelvic fracture, for example, was uncommon on a pedal bicycle — only about 6 percent of conventional cycling injuries. For e-bike crashes, though, it was 25 percent.
The most alarming difference was the fatality rate. “On a pedal bike, the chance of dying from an injury is about three-tenths of 1 percent,” Alfrey says. On an e-bike, the data indicated, it was 11 percent.
These findings signaled what was unfolding around the country. During the same four-year period when nationwide sales quadrupled, e-bike injuries increased by a factor of 10, to 23,493 from 2,215, according to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. A study by the University of California, San Francisco, found that from 2017 to 2022, head injuries from e-bike accidents increased 49-fold.
Which means ebike injuries rose 2.5 times faster than ebike sales.
Now we finally know.
The paper goes on to note that Class 2 throttle-controlled ebikes have claimed the overwhelming majority of the market.
By “throttle devices,” he is referring to Class 2 machines, which have captured an estimated two-thirds of the e-bike market. According to PeopleForBikes, the rationale in 2015 for creating a class for bikes with throttles — which can eliminate even the modest exercise benefits of pedal assistance — was that many e-bikes already had them, and the trade organization didn’t want to exclude those products and companies.
But to Mittelstaedt and others, it’s inappropriate to consider these vehicles to be “bikes” at all. “The essence of bicycling is pedaling,” Mittelstaedt says. “A machine propelled by a motorcycle throttle just shouldn’t be considered a bicycle. It can go from zero to 20 faster than a regular bike without any exertion at all.”
As we’ve repeatedly stressed, anything that can travel faster than 28 mph isn’t legally an ebike. And anything without pedals isn’t a bicycle.
Some manufacturers — but not governments — have taken it upon themselves to call such machines “Class 4” e-bikes. Others refer to them as “out-of-class electric vehicles”; bicycle-advocacy groups, which want to avoid being associated with these machines, prefer “e-motos.” In any case, they aren’t bicycles, nor are they street legal without registration and a license, yet they still show up regularly on roads and bike paths. One online influencer called Sur Ronster, who also has a retail business called Ronster Rides, posts videos of bands of teenagers, dozens strong, outdoing one another’s daredevil feats at breakneck speed on city streets and highways.
Like this dual-engine Chinese ebike with a top speed of 46 mph, which would classify it as a motorbike in virtually every American state — yet is somehow still sold as a ped-assist bike.
It’s worth taking the time to read the whole Times story. Because it’s long past time we started making those differences clear.
But if you’re in a hurry, you can catch the Cliff Notes version in a brief interview with the writer.
Wait, is Cliff Notes even a thing anymore?
Meanwhile, Harley Davidson is teaming with the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition to host a course on ebike safety, while the San Diego police issued warnings about riders on illegal e-motos capable of 80 mph zooming through traffic and crowded areas.
And Electrek warns parents about the dangers of Sur Ron and other high-powered electric motos. Thanks Ellectrek for the link.
And no, I don’t think they don’t mean ped-assist bikes.
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Police in Hermosa Beach arrested two ebike — actually e-moto — riding teens for leading the vicious gang beatdown given to a man carrying his takeout pizza.
The boys were part of a group of five kids aged 13-15 identified by police as the attackers, who only broke off the assault when one of the boys mistakenly yelled that the victim, who has not been publicly identified, was dead.
Another man came forward after news of the attack surfaced, saying he, too, had been attacked by a gang of ebike-riding teens.
Initial police reports sparked angry comments for implying that the victim had somehow done something to instigate the assault, which the police later retracted.
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Bike deals are continuing post-Black Friday with today’s Cyber Monday deals, with the best specials highlighted by Cycling News and Cycling Weekly.
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A podcast host talks with two millennials who quit their jobs to bike around the world, and wrote a book about it.
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A Freemont CA rancher has installed a gate across a formerly open roadway, blocking a path used by bicyclists and hikers for years.
Thanks to Megan for forwarding the video.
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A YouTube video considers how Victoria, British Columbia, population 92,000, tripled its bicycling rate in just 11 years.
Thanks to Norm for the video.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
No bias here. A Sunnyvale website says residents feel their voice is being “drowned out by a vocal cyclist lobby,” because they value their God-given right to park their cars on the curbs over the safety of people on two wheels. There’s that mythical bike lobby raising its ugly head again, and Hulk-smashing all who don’t bow down before it.
A man and woman face charges in Lafayette, Louisiana after allegedly yelling at another woman, beating her and threatening her with a gun before yet another beatdown in front of her kid, all because her husband committed the crime of yelling at the woman to slow her car down while he was riding bikes with the couple’s young son.
But sometimes it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A 60-year old Gainesville, Florida man faces 11 separate charges, including possession of meth, resisting arrest and, yes, littering, after he ran away on foot when police tried to stop him for riding salmon and without lights on his bike.
A British reporter launches a “bold social experiment” to see if he can get his phone stolen by ebike-riding — actually, e-motorbike — thieves, then track it to reveal their location. Thanks again to Megan for the video.
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Local
The Malibu City Council approved a comprehensive, $50 million safety improvement plan for Pacific Coast Highway, including new and improved sidewalks and 9.7 miles of new bike lanes, with just a single dissenting vote.
State
Calbike will reveal its legislative agenda for the coming year in a webinar this Wednesday; sign up here for the 10 am video conference.
Police in Anaheim have arrested the alleged hit-and-run driver accused of hitting a 12-year old boy riding an ebike last week, leaving the kid with a concussion, broken leg and multiple bruises; 29-year old Fullerton resident Jonathan Diaz reportedly took off on foot after crashing his car a few blocks after he struck the boy’s bike, leaving behind evidence he was under the influence.
National
Bike Magazine is back in print for the first time since the heady pre-pandemic days of 2020.
Cycling Savvy explains how to navigate diverging traffic lanes on your bicycle.
Velo makes the case for why you should skip the crappy bikes, and buy your kid a decent bicycle to learn how to ride this Christmas.
A writer for Strongtowns makes the case that Complete Streets has run its course, leaving cities with “expensive, over-engineered corridors that win awards but fail the people they claim to serve.” Although I’d question whether the study the story is based on cherry-picked cities where Complet Streets failed, rather than where they have succeeded.
Seattle has launched a commercial e-cargo bike program to encourage businesses to adopt cleaner alternatives to standard delivery trucks.
A pair of Seattle bike advocacy groups have purchased their own ebike-towed bike lane sweeper to clear out the wet, soggy leaves that pile up next to the curb.
International
Sometimes the best use of a bicycle isn’t riding it. A nine-year old Peruvian boy raffled off his beloved bicycle to fund a trip to Canada for the World Mathematics Championship, and came back home with a gold medal.
Despite rumors of budget cuts and caps on bike prices, Britain’s Bike to Work program that pays for bike commuters’ bicycles will be largely unchanged in the county’s new budget.
A study from Limerick, Ireland showed that the city’s new bike lanes “maintained or improved” access for ambulances, which could use the bike lanes to get through traffic when needed. So much for the myth that bike lanes keep emergency vehicles from getting through.
British bike writer and historian Carlton Reid talks with American Eric Hassett, who moved from Colorado to Malmö, Sweden to help design Thule’s sleek new pannier system.
This is why people keep dying on the streets. Colombian Tour de France sprinter Fernando Gaviria was given a suspended sentence for drunk driving in Monaco — despite being more than five times over the legal limit. Seriously, there’s no excuse for driving under the influence, no matter who you are.
That’s more like it. Croatia’s Silba Island has replaced engine noise with the sound of bike wheels, after banning cars from the island five decades ago.
Young workers in North Korea’s Wonsan Kalma Coastal Tourist Area are only turning up to state jobs on paper, instead ferrying goods and tourists on bicycles and motorbikes, rather than working without salaries or rations.
After biking nearly 400 miles across South Korea, a Malaysian writer wonders if a cross-country bikeway could unlock that country’s tourism potential, as well.
Competitive Cycling
Former Dutch pro Stef Clement is calling for cyclists to pass a proficiency test and “crash course” before they can ride in the peloton, while his countryman Tom Dumoulin says protective clothing should be normalized for pro cyclists.
The bicycle the legendary Eddy Merckx rode when he broke the hour record in Mexico City in 1972, cycling 49.4 kilometers, or 30.69 miles, in one hour stands on display in the Brussels metro station named after him.
Twenty-one-year old cycling rookie Isaac del Toro was named Mexico’s sportsman of the year with the country’s highest sports honor, the 2025 National Sports Award, after winning winning 16 pro races, nearly winning the Giro and climbing to third in the world rankings in just his first year on the WorldTour.
Thirty-five-year old Colombian cyclist Esteban Chaves called it a career after 16 years in the pro peloton, including five Grand Tour victories, podium finishes in both the Giro and the Vuelta, and winning Il Lombardia; he called it quits after he didn’t receive an offer for the upcoming season.
Finally…
Now you, too, can turn your garage into a virtual fortress to protect your two-wheeled pride and joy. Go back to the future of bicycling.
And who needs a nightclub when you can DJ from the seat of your bicycle?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.
