Home › Forums › General ›

E-bikes officially allowed on streets

Submitted by admin on October 2, 2009 - 11:38am
in

Ontario is allowing e-bikes on the streets now that the 3 year pilot is over. They've made some adjustments to the rules:

  • Cannot have a maximum weight above 120 kilograms.
  • Must have a maximum braking distance of nine metres.
  • Cannot undergo any modifications to their electric motors to generate speeds greater than 32 km/h, the maximum allowed for e-bike motors.

Municipalities can still decide if they will allow e-bikes on streets, paths or bike lanes.

I'm glad they've put in a weight limit, though I wonder if it's too low to allow cargo bikes with electric-assist.

‹ Suburban Critical Mass discontinued until next spring 2010 Igor, bike theft, dooring in doc on CBC ›

They're just referring to the bike itself - not the end weight with the rider on it. Also, 120kilos (265 pounds) is pretty heavy. I can't imagine an electric assist bike ever topping that out.

dash (not verified) October 2, 2009 - 12:47pm #

the regs are silent about trailers... BTW yesterday I saw a tandem pedal bike towing a child on one of those "trailer" half-bikes... The whole vehicle might have been 10ft long and w/rider weight over 400lbs...
tks
Loc

lOCk October 2, 2009 - 3:05pm #

Loc, you'll never find a 120KG bicycle... keep on burning those straw-men because you just can't compare apples to oranges(120KG of solid welded metal to 140KG of flesh and 40KG of metal)

Just the other night I saw some kid on his e-scooter wearing no-helmet weaving around people on the sidewalk and then blow through the stop-sign at full-speed right in front of me. Yeah.

I wonder... e-scooter wheels are smaller and legally it's a bicycle, I bet you can lawfully ride them on the sidewalk... probably what he was up to.

electric October 2, 2009 - 10:16pm # Replied

Check out Copenhagen. Plenty of cargo bikes weighting hundreds of pounds with cargo and passengers...
One example of a poor rider isn`t representative sampling.

lOCk October 3, 2009 - 5:14am #

lOCk you do realize that 120kgs refers to the max weight of the "e-bike" w/out rider right?

Steel tandem w/ child half-bike will come in around 23-35kgs w/out riders, and it can transport 3 people.

Anonymous (not verified) October 3, 2009 - 9:33am # Replied

lOCk you do realize that the regulation specifies the weight of the vehicle w/out rider, right?

or

Check out Toronto. Plenty of bicycles weighting? hundreds of pounds with bicycle and rider...
One bad example while ignoring the text of the regulation isn't the way to make your point.

Anonymous (not verified) October 3, 2009 - 9:47am # Replied