DON'T BREAK THE LAW! eBike Classifications #electricbikelaws #bikelaws

welcome back to electric bike Journal if you're looking at purchasing a new electric bike or wanting to make sure that you aren't breaking any laws while you're out riding today's video is worth a watch chances are you've been met with a class one two or three e-bike classification rating and you're wondering what that means today I will share with you what each one of those e-bike classifications means and what you should expect out of that bike in terms of writing experience [Music] whether it be an Urban electric bike like this orbea Vibe or maybe it's a cargo electric bike a gravel or a mountain one for going out on the trails there are a lot of options available on the market depending on your budget the type of assistance how much the bike weighs these are all additional factors in choosing the right electric bike but most importantly is choosing a bike with the right classification rating this will allow you to not only enjoy a bike that fits all of your needs but it also will be a bike that legally you'll be allowed to ride in the most areas for you so hopefully after this video you'll have a bit more knowledge when you're looking at all the different e-bikes that are available on the market and if you're looking for information and reviews that's what we do here please click subscribe as we do bike reviews how-to videos and even electric bike giveaways we offer those giveaways from time to time to subscribers of the channel and people that leave comments on our videos so click subscribe and join us before we jump into what each classification of electric bike means what is an electric bike well according to the US vehicle code an electric bike is a bicycle that has functioning pedals and a electric motor less than 750 watts now I'm sure as you've browsed around online you've probably come across at least one electric bike with a motor that's larger than a thousand Watts now although those do exist they do not fall under the three-tier classes of e-bike classification so you're gonna have to be a little cautious if you're interested in one of those as they don't fall under that standard and you'll have to do your own research to find out where you are legally allowed to ride those class one electric bikes this is probably the most common and popular electric bike classification on the market and it's definitely the most popular one used in E mountain bikes class 1 electric bikes are 100 pedal assist only that means no throttle or any doodad to make the bike go forward without pedaling and they have a speed limiter of supplying that assist up to 20 miles per hour you are totally allowed to Pedal this bike over that 20 miles per hour if you're Superman and want to Huff it or maybe you're going downhill and you just have the speed working for you but that motor will cut off at that 20 mile an hour speed limit and when you dip down below that that motor will pick back up and offer you that pedal assist back now that speed regulation of 20 miles per hour on class 1 electric bikes makes them extremely safe for multi-use Trails bike paths especially when they're really high traffic the lower speeds just keep things a little bit more in check and this is also why they are the most popular class of electric bike on the market next up is the class electric bike now Class 2 electric bikes are very similar to class one electric bikes with sharing that 20 mile an hour cut off for that pedal assist power the only difference is that they actually have a throttle it is located on the handlebars it's either a thumb throttle or maybe a quarter turn throttle in the grip and this means that that electric bike in that motor will actually function based off of the throttle and means that it will supply that power to get you up to that 20 miles per hour without actually having to pedal and that is a very different type of electric bike than a class one bike and due to that throttle class two bikes do see some changes in where they're allowed to be ridden now that throttle might not be for everyone but for those of you that are interested in a throttle of a Class 2 electric bike just know that when using a throttle for sustained amount of times you're going to see a dramatic decrease in your battery life in your battery range so when you're using a throttle it's going to use more energy than it typically would on a Class 1 bike when you're just pedaling and using the pedal assist along with pedaling when using that throttle you're allowing it to go full on which will cause that battery to die a little bit sooner so just be weary of your battery life and how soon what you may need to get back home to get a charge last but not least in the three different classifications of electric bikes is class 3 e-bikes class 3 e-bikes are different from both class one and two and that they have pedal assist up to 28 miles per hour classer e-bikes do not have a throttle so they are similar to class 1 in that way but they do have that extra boost to get you to those faster speeds in the US there are a few more policies surrounding class 3 electric bikes a lot of them are more so focused on where they are allowed but there are a handful that cover the safety aspects of riding a class 3 bike due to those higher speeds now a word of caution when riding a class 3 electric bike is that when you're on the road if you are doing 28 miles per hour or more the other drivers and people in cars around you are not expecting a bike to be moving so fast so always always be wearing your helmet and just know that you might need to be giving extra room to the other people around you because they're just not going to be expecting you to be going as fast now it's not all gloom and doom when it comes to class 3 electric bikes in fact they're some of our favorite electric bikes to ride because they get us from point A to point B extremely fast and we've noticed that sometimes our communion times are faster than they are driving and if we're racing each other maybe and seeing if the bike is faster than the car on certain routes we often are faster on a bike than we are with the car and we get to Park up front as we can with any bike in any of the classifications with or without a motor now we've covered class one two and three electric bikes and those are what we use here in the US with about 39 States so far fully committing to the e-bike classification system now in other parts of the world they use different standards as we know with many things as you travel the rules change a little bit I'm sure as you've shopped around online you've probably seen a few bikes coming out of Europe that use different words than we do here and those words might be pedaleck or S padaleck now what does that mean a padaleck in Europe is a electric bike that supplies no more than 250 watts of power out of that electric motor and has a speed limit of 25 kilometers an hour bikes that fall under that pedalac rating are very similar to ours here in the states of class 1 electric bikes so they have pretty similar standards and if you were to buy a padillac from era and bring it here you likely would suspect it to be a Class 1 electric bike s pedal X on the other hand will support pedal assist up to 45 kilometers an hour and have a Max motor of 4 000 Watts which is a massive motor but similar to our rules here between the different classes in Europe padalex and S LX are distinctively not allowed in the same areas and have totally different set of rules when writing as we mentioned earlier electric mountain bikes typically are class one which means they're going to have that lower pedal assist max speed limit and might not be the best for perhaps commuting or if you just want to go from some place a to some place B extremely fast you might want to look into a Class 2 electric bike or maybe a class 3 electric bike to have that throttle assist or that super high max speed of that assist in the motor regardless of the class of your electric bike be sure to check out your state laws and your local laws to make sure that you are riding them within bounds of where they are allowed to be written and if you're looking for a new bike maybe check the laws first before you buy once that way you don't get stuck with the one that you can't technically ride where you want to ride it we'll attach links Down Below in the description to peopleforbikes.org which is is probably the most reputable and largest active group working with electric bike policy here in the US and a few more links like Bosch and Shimano that will have more information regarding the different classes of electric bikes if you're looking for more information well hopefully we were able to help you better understand what the different classes of e-bikes are here in the US and if you're looking for more information as we mentioned earlier down below that link to people for bikes that will be the greatest resource to find out what your local laws are regarding e-bikes be sure to leave a comment down below letting us know what type of e-bike you're interested in maybe what class e-bike sounds most appealing to you we just love knowing what people are interested in writing thanks again for watching we'll see in the next video

Channel: Electric Bike Journal

Views: 21,107

Keywords: Electric bike journal, ebike, ebike review, ebike laws, class 1 electric bikes, class 2 electric bike, class 3 electric bike, us electric bike laws explained, e bike regulations, class 1 vs class 2 ebike, what is class 1 ebike, class 1 vs class 3 ebike, ebike classes, electric bike classification, ebike legal, class 2 vs class 3 ebike, ebike education, how ebike laws work, e bike laws, electric bike laws, us electric bike laws

Id: 9te3V4ge7N8

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023