Is it ok to ride on restricted trails if you take off the battery

[PowerMe]

I'm no lawyer, and maybe I'm splitting hairs that cannot be split, but it makes sense to me that if you have a bike with no battery on it and during your ride that bike cannot be powered by anything but feet pushing the pedals, at that time it's a "bike." It may have a hub on it and the ability to become an electric powered bike with an added charged battery, but without any power to the hub, the hub is just a chunk of metal sitting on the wheel, or in the case of a mid-drive, a hunk of extra metal sitting near the wheels.

A regular bike could (easily) become an eBike with the addition of a hub wheel, battery, and a controller, but if it doesn't have the necessary parts on it to be powered electrically, it's just a bike. (At least the way I'm seeing it).

 

[Mike leroy]

I'm no lawyer, and maybe I'm splitting hairs that cannot be split, but it makes sense to me that if you have a bike with no battery on it and during your ride that bike cannot be powered by anything but feet pushing the pedals, at that time it's a "bike." It may have a hub on it and the ability to become an electric powered bike with an added charged battery, but without any power to the hub, the hub is just a chunk of metal sitting on the wheel, or in the case of a mid-drive, a hunk of extra metal sitting near the wheels.

A regular bike could (easily) become an eBike with the addition of a hub wheel, battery, and a controller, but if it doesn't have the necessary parts on it to be powered electrically, it's just a bike. (At least the way I'm seeing it).

Yes, that is how a reasonable person would respond. Like another person mentioned, you may be dealing with an unreasonable person. They can make an equally strong counter argument and get you in big trouble.

 

[Ann M.]

After a lifetime of biking conventional and expensive upright and recumbent bikes (I'm 86) I can testify that bike trails are dangerous places when roadies ride faaaast on their trail-legal road bikes. If I am pedaling along at 15 mph on my Pedego Interceptor with electric assist there is no logical reason to prohibit me from the trail. Sadly, more time will have to pass before the bloody bureaucrats figure that out.

@GatorBob the trails along our local 'lake'/Colorado River offshoot are really more of a mixed trail and I've been miffed more than a few times to see folks on mountainbikes mowing through pedestrians & other cyclists like it was singletrack. I've always kept the ebike speed comparable to the flow of the others on the trail when its a mixed use trail--if I need to be all flash with speed, then there's the streets or rural roads. Keep trying. We've done lots of ride and drives and even brought them to the Parks folks to try. It does seem to defuse the issue in some cases!

 

[Tim Hardman]

RE: multi use paths


I would like to see these paths remain multi use so we bikers and e-bikers have the greatest number of paths available for us to choose from. If walkers and runners experience collisions or near misses from bikes/e-bikes whizzing past them, the fastest groups using the paths will be eliminated first. So far, all common sense that most will agree with.


Now it gets subjective. In my opinion, a comfortable environment for a walker means, I don’t have to worry about a collision where I could get hurt or knocked over or even a near miss where I feel like if I had just stepped over another 6 inches to the left I would have been hit hard by that bike flying by.


To make multi use paths safe and comfortable for everyone I think there should be requirements concerning: 1. Approach Warning/Alerts with a Bell and 2. Maximum overtake rate. I think the overtake rate needs to be about 3 mph or whatever a normal walking speed is. This rate along with 4 or 5 seconds of advance audible warning of your approach in my mind seems reasonable. If there are pets on leashes or little kids walking or on bikes/trikes; they have brains that are not as focused on potential safety threats and thus may react unexpectedly darting out in front of you at the last second while you are passing. So more warning and a slower passing rate is called for. Same thing when approaching a group from behind that is very animated, loud and active. They may be too focused on their conversation to hear you coming and may not be paying attention to staying in their lane thus allowing you to pass unobstructed. They may also be playfully pushing each other around and just being unpredictably all over the place. We have to defer to the pedestrians and if we don’t we will be the first to lose the usage rights. We probably need to do a better job policing each other also. Politely letting someone we see riding the multiuse paths at inappropriate speeds (yeah, I know, totally subjective), suggesting a more safe way for bikes to use the paths around people and reminding that we could all lose our rights to the path if we are not more considerate of the walkers. If we don’t police ourselves then eventually someone else will…first with license plates and then with path reclassification excluding e-bikes or even worse e-bike reclassification as a motorized vehicle completely eliminating them from sidewalks, paths, trails and even bicycle lanes on the public roads.


When I looked at the complete video that George S. posted on page 1 of this thread, my initial impression was that this rider was riding pretty safely...maybe just a tad bit too fast when overtaking. On open (both ways) straightaway sections I think it’s fine to open it up and go faster but when overtaking you must be very close to the traveling speed of the people you are overtaking and give them plenty of warning. I think this rider in this video was going just a bit too fast when overtaking. The rider was not giving any warning of his approach and when he passed the family with little kid on the trike (at 1:20 on video), although he was going pretty slow, I think it was too fast having not alerted the group audibly that he was passing. At 3:20 on the video, this rider was passed by another faster rider. The faster rider gave him an audible warning (“on your left” – maybe as a general warning that he gives everyone or maybe because the rider being passed was drifting to the left and he did not know how far he was going to go?) and immediately after the audible warning the rider being passed moved to the right showing the passing rider he heard his warning but his overtake speed was too fast in my opinion for the following reason. What if the rider being passed was unable to hear the audible warning due to deafness or listening to music or other sounds in the environment? It’s possible he could have wandered over into the passing lane and made contact with the rider overtaking him at a much faster than walking pace.


Some of us like to ride fast, push the edge of control, be challenged with obstacles to avoid at speed and that’s fine but it just can’t be done on the multi use paths when there are other people around, using the path or even watching you out there alone hot-dogging. They may be left with the impression it would be unsafe for them to use the path themselves if this was the type of traffic they could encounter. They may not know you only ride this way after checking both directions to confirm you are all alone and not endangering anyone else. We all just need to be conservative in our riding style and communicative when overtaking on the multi use paths. If that kind of respect becomes intolerable due to the frequency of passing situations, then that path is no longer the right one for you to use...on your bike anyway...maybe it should become a walking path for you too and you find some other riding paths with less traffic.

 

[PowerMe]

Well said, Tim! I concur. It will be interesting to see how I deal with the speed issue on my local area multi use paths when I have an ebike because as a regular cyclist on a non-electric bike... I'm slowwww. Maybe 7 or 8 mph on average and probably no faster than 10 mph on really open/clear paths. When I test rode an Evo City, the fastest I rode it was up to 15mph (and that felt very fast to me). Ultimately it's up to each individual to be aware and careful at all times and use appropriate measures to let others know you're there and be responsible. I sure don't want to lose any privileges!

 

[Mike leroy]

In my area, dog owners are most vocal about bicyclists. I think they fear a dog and bike accident.

I run in the park. Dogs have chased me so often, that I just stop running. I walk past the dogs and resume running. I have actually made some friends that way. One greyhound loves to run with me. The dog does 360 spins at 12mph, from pure joy! The dog cracks me up!

I think a diplomatic approach is best. I can resort to martial arts training, if attacked. I do not want to send someone to the hospital or spend time in jail.

The U.S. National Institute of Health has done studies:

Three different types of risky behaviors were identified, including stop beyond the stop line, riding in motorized lanes, and riding against traffic. Two-wheeled vehicle riders' gender and age and traffic conditions were significantly associated with the behaviors of 2-wheeled vehicle riders at the selected signalized intersections.

CONCLUSIONS:
Compared to e-bike and bicycle riders, e-scooter riders are more likely to take risky behaviors. More specifically, they are more likely to ride in motorized lanes and ride against traffic.