Quoting Robbie Webber:
> I think they meant CalBikes <https://calbike.org/> - The
> California Bicycle Coalition. (Getting the name wrong for
> non-profits is routine in state and business press releases,
> and it barely even registers anymore.)
=v= That's probably right, CalBike and various more local
bicycle advocacy groups all started bringing up e-bike matters
at the same time. To CalBike's credit, it took the form of
asking members what they thought of the proposed changes. Some
smaller groups, on the other hand, simply took the approach of
passing along marketing material about how great e-bikes are.
It was disconcerting for me to see the same marketing copy
suddenly pop up all over the nation.
> I believe the speed limits listed are maximum capabilities
> of the bikes, not ones that people are supposed to voluntarily
> supposed to follow.
=v= This is not especially enforceable, and an after-market to
provide illegal upgrades has existed for decades (for the past
definitions of "illegal"). Indeed, the main feature of this
latest round of e-bike technology is that it's compact enough
that at first glance you don't even notice it, which probably
inspired lobbyists' attempt to have them defined as bicycles.
Speeding e-bikes have became a big problem in Amsterdam of all
places, where they have had to come up with a very elaborate
approach to enforcement: they have checkpoints where they
stop e-bikes and run them on a set of rollers to see what
their actual top speed is!
=v= Just to be clear: I don't object to e-bikes per se. My
concerns are 1) advocacy groups whose agenda is set by money,
not by what bicyclists actually need or want; and 2) laws
that aren't enforceable, won't be enforced, everybody knows
it, and nearly everyone lies about it.
<_Jym_>
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