Walk Bike Westport advocates for a town “where children pedal to school without a parent behind the wheel, where a downtown errand doesn’t need a parking space, where the hill that once made cycling to the train station unthinkable simply isn’t a barrier anymore.”
That’s why they support pedal-assist electric bicycles.
A Class 1 e-bike is “a great way to get around,” the organization says. “It’s quiet, it tops out around 20 miles per hour, and it only helps when you pedal. It helps more people ride farther, and tackle hills with confidence — making cycling accessible to riders of all ages and abilities.”
Class 1 pedal-assist e-bike.
But, Walk Bike Westport says, there is a threat: “a different machine wearing the same name … overpowered bikes that tear through traffic at 30 or 40 miles an hour aren’t e-bikes.”
Instead, they’re “motor-driven cycles.” And they generate a backlash that could hurt pro-biking efforts.
Walk Bike Westport wants residents to not get taken for a ride.
According to Connecticut law, a Class 1 e-bike has working pedals and a motor of 750 watts or less. It tops out around 20 miles per hour, and adds power only when you pedal. Like a bicycle, it requires no license, plate or insurance.
But as of last October, a bike with no working pedals, or with a motor strong enough to push past 30, is a “motor-driven cycle or a motorcycle.” You need a license. The most powerful versions need registration and insurance too.
However, Walk Bike Westport notes, the classification is not obvious, and both look similar.
A parent sees an “e-bike,” and assumes it’s a bicycle. The seller has little reason to correct them. “By the time anyone sorts out what category the thing actually falls into, it’s usually because something has gone wrong.”
It’s not the fault of “the kid doing 35 down Hillspoint Road,” the Westport organization says. “The machine (is) mislabeled.”
More and more of these motorbikes are sold with motors several times over the 750-watt limit, and often without pedals.
The best-known is the Sur-Ron, says Walk Bike Westport, which its manufacturer calls an electric dirt bike. Others, like the Talaria, are built and sold the same way.
“The confusion creeps in later, once they hit resellers and online marketplaces, where the same bike gets listed as an ‘e-bike’ and a buyer has no reason to doubt it.”
E-bike? Motorbike? It’s confusing.
Connecticut requires sellers to label a bike with its class, wattage and top speed. But that only works if a buyer knows how to read it, and if someone checks.
“An officer watching a bike go by can’t read its wattage at a glance, and the gap between a fast e-bike and a slow motorcycle is exactly the kind of line that’s sharp in a statute and invisible on a road,” Walk Bike Westport notes.
Our town’s approach leans toward education. Westport Police issued a guide for parents, and held a forum at Town Hall.
“That instinct is the right one,” Walk Bike Westport says. “Most families with a misclassified bike have no idea they have one, and a summons doesn’t fix a problem that started with a misleading listing.
Southington, meanwhile, has a zero-tolerance policy. They issue citations, seize bikes, and even make arrests. But there’s danger, the Westport bike group says, in “treating every bike as a suspect.”
Walk Bike Westport wants to avoid that outcome. The answer to the e-bike problem “isn’t more fear. It’s clarity, and a town built so that the right bikes have somewhere safe to go.”
Walk Bike Westport advocates for safety.
The town and Police “can publish a plain guide that tells a resident, in 1 page, whether the bike in their garage is a bicycle or a motorcycle under Connecticut law,” Walk Bike Westport says.
Some of that work is already underway, they note — “and it’s coming from the people with the most at stake.”
This spring the teenagers on the Westport Youth Commission’s E-bike Safety and Awareness group developed a poster campaign to teach young riders how to ride safely, and teach parents which e-bikes their kids are allowed to ride.
They worked with the Police Department and Walk Bike Westport; put their posters in doctors’ offices, schools and bike shops, and are planning events for this fall.
Youth Commission posters.
“When the kids most associated with the problem are the ones standing up to solve it, the rest of the town should pay attention,” says Walk Bike Westport.
However, the group notes, “most of what makes cycling feel unsafe in Westport has nothing to do with e-bikes, and everything to do with roads built only for cars.”
The town is working on a safety plan with federal funding, including protected lanes and calmer streets.
Walk Bike Westport has one final message: “A pedal-assist e-bike is one of the best things to happen to local transportation.
“(But) a throttle-driven motorbike wearing a bicycle’s name is a different thing entirely. It should be ridden, licensed, and treated for what it is.
“Defend the first. Be straight about the second. And the Westport we pictured (in the first paragraph of this story) gets a little closer.”
Walk Bike Westport and the Westport Youth Commission spread awareness at last month’s “Kickoff to Summer” at Compo Beach.
… and third.
