this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Bicycles
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Personally, if it's capable of slow highway speeds (45 and up), has more than 30 miles of range, and full safety lighting, then it's a low power motorcycle. Anything less is a bike.
Legally speaking though, it's actually pretty diverse by area. For instance, California requires pedal assist integration, eg if it can accelerate with no pedal movement it's a motorcycle, and then the bikes have 3 levels of classification (why though? Not sure), with max output regulated to 1600W (afaik since I don't live there). In other places they're more lax with regulation, just depends.
Yeah in Canada we have e-bike classes, the kind that require pedal pressure to engage motor are allowed in same places as bicycles ( like walking trails etc). When they have a throttle the class changes, because more can go wrong