MTB legend asks if it is time to draw a line in the sand of when e-bikes become “too powerful”
An Open Letter to the Bicycle Industry
To the leaders, builders, advocates, and riders who shape our industry,
I’m writing because I care deeply about where bicycles—and electric bicycles—are headed. We are at a crossroads. The decisions we make about language, power limits, and definitions will determine whether Class 1 e-bikes remain accepted as bicycles—or get grouped with much more powerful machines that don’t belong in the same category.
It’s time to define our language and it’s time to draw a line in the sand of when e-bikes become too powerful.
Words Matter
Today, the term “e-bike” is used to describe everything from a lightweight pedal-assist mountain bike to electric mopeds and full-blown electric motorcycles. That lack of precision creates confusion—and conflict—with land managers, other trail users, parents, and lawmakers.
If we don’t define our terms, others will define them for us.
Ideally, “e-bike” would mean one thing:
A Class 1 pedal-assist bicycle with a maximum assist speed of 20 mph [in North America – Editor] , no throttle, and a motor not exceeding 750 watts of peak power.
Instead, the label has expanded to cover vehicles with throttles, higher speeds, and significantly more power. That blurring of categories puts access at risk.
Clear Categories, Clear Expectations
We need distinct names for distinct machines:
- E-bicycle (EMTB): Class 1 pedal-assist only (20 mph max assist, 750W max peak power)
- E-moped: Throttle-equipped or faster than 20 mph or exceeding 750W, incl. Class 2&3
- E-motorcycle: High-power electric motorcycles well beyond bicycle-level performance
Clear labeling should be mandatory. Every electric vehicle should visibly state its category, assist speed, and peak motor power. This isn’t about enforcement—it’s about clarity and accountability.
The 750-Watt Line Matters
The 750-watt peak limit is not arbitrary. It helps determine whether a vehicle is treated as a bicycle or a motorcycle—and whether it remains welcome on trails and bike paths.
Maximum peak power and nominal (or average/rated) peak power are not the same.
A bike limited to 750 watts peak never exceeds that output. A motor rated at 750 watts nominal can produce much higher bursts of power. That difference is significant.
Class 1 e-bikes gained acceptance because they behave like bicycles: pedal-assist only, no throttle, limited speed, and moderate power. If we allow power creep—higher torque, faster acceleration, motorcycle-like performance—we shouldn’t be surprised when access disapears and regulations increase.
We are already seeing warning signs. In New Jersey, a bill was already signed that will require insurance, registration, motorcycle helmets, and will restrict trail access for electric bikes. In California, lawmakers are working to reinforce the 750W peak limit to improve safety and preserve trail legality. These debates are not theoretical—they are happening now.
A Call to Responsibility
To manufacturers:
Resist the temptation to chase bigger numbers at the expense of long-term access. Short-term sales gains could lead to long-term collapse.
To media and marketers:
Use precise language—even when it’s less convenient. Help draw and defend the line that protects this category.
To riders:
Ride responsibly. Understand what’s at stake. Don’t take trail access for granted.
To advocates and trade groups:
Defend Class 1 clearly and consistently. The industry must self-regulate until the laws are defined.
In order to protect what we have we must stop asking how much power we can get away with—and start asking how much power is too much.
— Hans Rey
What’s the problem with power?
Why is more watts a problem? Well, it’s nothing really much to do with mountain biking rider safety or trail erosion or even the forever in the background spectre of illegal de-restriction. It’s to do with pedal assist bicycles straying too far from their original remit and raisn d’être. Namely, to add a bit of extra motor power on top of the rider power going into the pedals.
Anyone who’s ridden a DJI Avinox ebike – such as the Amflow PL Carbon – will know that it doesn’t take very many rider input watts to get the motor ro give out its much hyped 1,000 watts of motor assistance. The experience is akin to using soft-pedalling of the cranks as essentially a throttle.
It’s this ‘support ratio’ issue that the bike industry is concerned about. Although 1,000w pedal assist bikes are still quite far off things like Surron e-motos in terms of power (minimum 12,500w of peak), there’s no denying that higher and higher wattage e-bikes have the potential to stray too far from regular bicycles.
Also, it should be mentioned that Hans Rey is a Bosch ambassador, so is not entirely without skin in the game, as they say.
Read more about the e-bike power struggle.
I’ve agreed with the maximum power restriction, but like the assist speed restriction it is utterly pointless if motor/bike brands allow the restrictions to be removed. I’d go as far as to say the only way out of the hole being dug is for the law to be changed to remove the “for use on private land” get out clause, and for sales to be limited to bikes that can not be easily adapted to exceed the limits set out for path, road and public land use in the country of use. If it’s left to manufacturers, there will always be some other brand taking your sales by allowing derestrictions, or a retailer importing bikes from another market with different rules. Without national rules on sales and importing (rather than just on use) setting out any rules on power, speed or % of assist is pretty much useless… while removing/changing restrictions is made trivial, enough riders will adapt their bikes and ignore the rules to blur the lines and endanger ebike access for all.
I say it on all the time and I get shouted down all the time, but continuous power is a minimum power test, not a maximum power test.
Maximum continuous power suggests you should be fine with a smaller less powerful motor. That is not the case. If you had a motor that could only deliver 200W Continuous power (ie, in the lab conditions specified the temperature would not have stabilised after 30 minutes) then that ebike would be illegal to sell. If you had a motor that was capable of delivering 5000W continuous power but you slapped a ‘250W continuous power’ sticker on it would be legal to sell.
I think the ‘Maximum Continuous Power’ was used by manufacturers to pull the wool over the eyes of the regulators when the regulations were first being written. This is why the manufacturers were shuffling their feet awkwardly and saying, ‘Actually, we’re fine, thanks’ when that ridiculous 500W consultation was being done for the UK last year. How much money was wasted to see if it was worth changing the stickers manufacturers were required to put on their motors?
Currently there is no limit on any type of power output an ebike can put out, continuous or peak. The only limit is that the motor can’t be so small it can’t do 250W continuous. That is a minimum limit.
I don’t think power makes too much difference on road for restricted e-bikes. Of course the only way to manage it given how easy it is to have non road-legal versions is licensing with periodic testing and probably government issued identifiers prominently displayed to demonstrate and allow compliance to be readily checked…
To the comments that road bikes can go faster, they can but a road bike at 20 mph generally implies a fairly fit guy on a small lightweight bike. The latter contributes to them feeling vulnerable so being generally somewhat cautious around pedestrians. Compare this with a fat man on a big sit up and beg e-bike loaded with panniers, even if the latter maintains the same margins he is much more intimidating (and hazardous) to pedestrians due to the the greater mass. This is much the same as being overtaken on a bike by a truck being more intimidating than a mini even if they leave the same space.
On road, the idea that e-bikes are in anyway the same game as a push bike is laughable when you see folks ploughing up stuff that Nino couldn’t clean. There a power limit would be more impactful. However, I don’t see that impacting enough of the population to factor in legislation.
I ride a Gen 3 Levo and it has more than enough power to do the job of making riding more fun, I would however like the assistance to carry on up to the 20 mph that Hans mentions in his article for those flatter trails but thats a minor complaint. I’ve learnt to stay in a lower gear and spin more so notice the limiter less.
Also more power, if used, just means that you are going home early with a flat battery so the fun is over too soon.
The 20mph is a US thing that I hope doesn’t come here. A 20mph e-bike doesn’t, in my opinion, mix well with other bikes on cycle and mixed use paths. I think that it is the use of e-bikes on cycle paths that is the critical point and where regulation should focus because that is where they can do more harm and where most are used. Other contexts; road, trail centres, off road, are secondary.
That’s basically it. The vast majority of people i kbow with e bikes are using them as commuter tools on mixed paths. Expensive e- mtbs are an outlier. 30 kmh is too much there
Personally I’d rather see a limit on the power multiplier – how much power the motor puts in being limited to a multiple of what the rider puts in.
Power output as they are currently, that can match what a reasonably fit, big rider can do doesn’t seem so different… but they can do it constantly for hours, whereas us meat powered people can do it for seconds at a time.
Would keep ebikes feeling and acting like “bikes, but better"
Your 20mph limit would have the same effect because kinetic energy = mass x velocity squared.
The real question, that the industry is shy of for obvious commercial reasons, is whether riding an e-mtb is mountain biking at all. In my hard-headed, biased, old skool opinion, as soon as you take ‘human powered’ out of the equation, it stops being mountain biking and becomes something else, a sort halfway house between riding a bicycle and riding an electric motorbike.
You can do all the delusional, self-deceiving rationalisation you like, but as soon as you’re no longer 100% pedalling the bike yourself, it’s a different thing. I also hate the noise they make for the same reason I have motorcycles and hair-driers being used in quiet, outdoor places. The whole e-mtb thing is just another symptom of our species’ obsession with complicating and automating everything to the point where eventually we’ll be incapable of getting out of an armchair unassisted.I don’t have a problem with people riding e-mtbs and I don’t honestly care about power levels, that bird took off pretty much as soon as the things appeared, but I dislike the pretence that they are ‘mountain biking’. The industry and the bike media want them to be mountain biking, people who ride them want them to be mountain biking, but really they’re just low-powered e-motorbikes with pedals.
“In my hard-headed, biased, old skool opinion, as soon as you take ‘human powered’ out of the equation, it stops being mountain biking”
The thing about mountain biking is that for many riders most of the immediate fun (if not the more complex rewards) comes from going downhill. A descending bike is not powered by a human, it is predominantly powered by gravity. Yea you have to charge the potential energy store but your method for that doesn’t change how that energy is released. Pedal up, push up, uplift, electric assist, it doesn’t matter. As soon as you’re going downhill enough then the electric power makes no difference anyway, it’s just a heavier bike.
I mostly commute (off-road) on my ebike. Yesterday (as often) I was running late getting back for the kids. I killed myself pedalling back up that steep greasy rooty hill – it hurt. (In fact it was more intense than when I went out on Sunday on my singlespeed). It was on turbo so I got up that hill twice as fast as I do on the solely human-powered gearless bike.
I would argue that if you feel that riding an ebike isn’t mountain biking then the problem isn’t the ebike, it’s what you choose to do when you have a motor to help. Put some effort in! 😉
So I suppose DH isn’t mountain biking because gravity does the descending and riders use an uplift. Congrats on defining your own version of mountain biking.
Suspect this has been done to death but I don’t pay a huge amount to ebike chat but…
These are restricted to keep.working up until a set speed – 15.5mph I think. Aware the motor makes it easier to get to that speed (although it isn’t effortless), so for those wanting to go to 20mph, does it not mean you just put more effort in that you haven’t needed to do to get to 15.5mph?
Very aware 20mph is harder to get to and maintain on a MTB than 15.5mph, but if you have the assist to get to the lower speed, is it the same effort then to get to the higher speed as it is on a non-emtb?
Genuine answer and not a wind up, I’ve only ridden an ebike twice – great fun but not for me (expensive, heavier and not as reliable) and as I don’t tend to pay attention to ebikes, I don’t really know how they work.
“Very aware 20mph is harder to get to and maintain on a MTB than 15.5mph, but if you have the assist to get to the lower speed, is it the same effort then to get to the higher speed as it is on a non-emtb?”
Basically yes. There’s a bit of motor drag (not much on my old Levo) and you’re accelerating something heavier but if you’re going downhill the weight helps. A lot of ebikers run heavier and stickier tyres on the grounds that they’ve got a motor to help – and then complain that you can’t pedal it past the cut-off but it’s mostly just the tyre choice making it harder.
On tarmac I’ll often pedal it past the cut-out. Downhill I usually turn the power off because I feel I ride better without a motor to help when I’ve messed up a corner!
@dickbarton
Depends on the bike. On a ‘full fat’ Emtb, 800wh battery, big motor, massive 2.6 downhill casing tyres, and with particular motors (many of the older motor designs too) trying to ‘break through’ the motor assist feels like a hitting a brick wall.
These are usually the people who complain about the limit being too low. These are also the people who tend to illegally chip their ebikes.*
On later motor designs, and the lighter ‘SL’ type ebikes, and certainly some of the better motor designs (TQ, speicalized SL etc) then you just pedal more and go faster with minimal drag etc, no different to any other bicycle.
I regularly ride my Levo SL in ‘off’ mode when with the family.
* Controversial – these are also the ‘larger’ people soft pedalling everywhere sat down and increasingly less physically capable of pedalling themselves at all…
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
Is it any less mountain biking than people who get a shuttle/chairlift to the top and then ride back down?
Also, for EPACs (aka normal eMTBs) you’re not taking humans out of the equation as the motor only offers assistance to the human input, it doesn’t replace it, as then it wouldn’t be an EPAC.
EDIT: Just realised other’s have covered this as I half typed a reply then went to make a cup of tea 😀
TBF this was Sheldon Brown’s view 20 years ago.
WRT eMTBs there is clearly a balance to be struck, and people riding around on what are legally electric motorbikes is doing nothing for the good EPACs can do, or for land access.
@tthew good point!
I KNEW that mechanical engineering degree would be useful one day! 😁
The limiter is a pain, always kick in at the most inopportune moment.
20mph would great, the gears on my Levo would spin out about there anyway.
15 sucks, when some scooter, car or motorbike whatever flies on by.
I dont know why the manufacturers got to be of cops of speed restricting.
I wouldn’t buy a gun with a bent barrel or the muzzle welded up !
And they wonder people hack them.
Edit: my first ever double post. Twins! So proud!!
The ‘problem’ is that the bike has a motor in the first place. As per my post, I have no issues with the existence of e-mtbs or with people riding them or even if the manufacturers choose to make them stupidly powerful, I just don’t think they’re mountain biking, just the bastard offspring of an unholy mating between a mountain bike and an e-motorcycle.
No, DH is mountain biking because the bikes don’t have motors. It’s not about whether you go up or down or along or levitate thanks to your divine status, it’s a simply, binary ‘does the bike have a motor yes or no?’ Like I said, I’m not anti the things, I just don’t think they’re genuinely mountain bikes ymmv and it makes no difference to anything at all.
“The ‘problem’ is that the bike has a motor in the first place."
A motorbike isn’t rideable without the motor running. An eMTB is. There is no binary divide because a legal eMTB can be both a predominantly motor-powered device (although not wholly) and a solely human-powered device and anywhere in between.
In fact, when the building I used to work in banned ebikes due to the alleged risks of battery fires, I removed the battery from mine, bought a 3D printed blanking plate, and cycled to work on my ebike whose motor could then be nothing more than decorative.
If I cable tie a motor to your mountain bike is it no longer a mountain bike?
As you say, it makes no difference at all, but since this is discussion forum let’s discuss…
I really don’t get the purist angle. Putting a small electric motor on a mountain bike that only provides assistance to the user’s own input doesn’t make it any less of a mountain bike, the rider any less of a mountain biker, or indeed the activity itself any less mountain biking.
Poor comparisons perhaps, but would you say a Flymo isn’t a real lawnmower, or an electric wheelchair isn’t a real wheelchair?
an interesting comparison