British Columbia, Canada: Policy designating Class 2 and 3 e-bikes as motorized vehicles goes into effect immediately

[Ken M]

There are other options. Ebikes will never be all things for all people. I have a motorcycle and a pickup for other duties.

I bike in mostly rural areas. I commuted by conventional bike 34 miles round trip. It was rural with only a few stop signs and no traffic signals. I found ebikes to flatten the hills. My average speed was higher because hills didn't slow me down. Speed on the flats was a couple mph faster and the overall saved a lot of time. All with a 20 mph ebike.

I can see why many commuters want s-peds. I'm glad they exist. I may need one some day. @Dionigi said class 1 worked for 90% of his needs. Most of us don't want to see s-peds outlawed. For trail riding, 20mph is fast enough. 0 to 20 is just as fast, given the same wattage, for all 3 classes.

We control motor vehicle speeds with speeds limits, not limiting the speed of the vehicle to the lowest common denominator. LEVA has proposed a one size assist limit of 50kph (around 30mph) for all ebikes which seems to me to make great sense given we need more people out of cars and most riders on trails are typically not going over 20mph except on downhills when ebikes do not add any speed.