LETTER: Safe, legal e-bikes deserve a place on Ozaukee bike trails

To Ozaukee Press:

The conversation happening right now about e-bikes on our local trails is missing the point. This is not about legal e-bikes. It is about the operator.

Wisconsin law is actually pretty clear on this. Under the state’s three-class system, a class 1 e-bike offers pedal assist only up to 20 mph. A class 2 adds a throttle but still caps at 20 mph, and a class 3 offers pedal assist up to 28 mph with a speedometer and minimum operator age of 16 required. Every legal e-bike sold in this state must carry a permanent label stating its class, top assisted speed and motor wattage. Those are the machines allowed on our paths, and they were never the problem.

The real headache is a growing category of machines being marketed as e-bikes that do not fit any of those three classes at all. They typically carry motors well over the legal wattage limit, hit speeds far beyond 28 mph and have pedals bolted on almost as an afterthought so the seller can call them a bicycle.

Try pedaling one of these things yourself. You cannot do it for more than a few feet before the weight and gearing make it pointless. These are minibikes wearing a costume, and lumping them in with legitimate e-bikes only muddies a conversation that should be about behavior, not battery size.

If we want safer trails, e-bikes are the wrong target. Riding a shared path is no different than showing courtesy on a golf course, a bowling lane or a hiking trail.

Part of the problem is that the people writing these bike laws have most likely not been on a bicycle themselves in the last decade. It is hard to legislate trail behavior with any nuance when you have not felt what it is like to ride one.

The Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office and local police have better things to do than patrol our bike trails looking for violations. What actually keeps these paths safe is common sense, a little more courtesy from every user, whether they are on two wheels, on foot, or holding a leash, and parents who take the time to understand what their kids are actually riding before they hand them the keys.

Let’s aim our concern at behavior instead of at a category of bicycle that has done more good for public health in southeast Wisconsin than almost anything else I have seen.

Glenn Rieker

Grafton