Sussex Police have issued a warning to cyclists thinking of pimping their ride with a power boost.
The warning came as officers confiscated an electric bike with added batteries.
Police in Brighton and Hove posted on Facebook: “Thinking about modifying your ebike? Think again.
“The rider of this ebike had modified their bike and added additional batteries which pushed the bike into a power category which exceeded that permitted to be ridden without a valid UK licence and vehicle documents including insurance.
“The bike was seized and the rider reported for the offences.”
This is another situation where the law says one thing but many people choose to break it.
In the UK the legal requirement for an e-bike is that it goes no faster than 15.5mph (or 25kph). The motor providing the pedal assist is supposed to be limited at 250watts, but some bikes are supplied with more hidden power and are simply limited to legal speeds via their software. It’s then fairly easy – or so I’m told – to adjust the top speed by removing any electronic control settings.
And that’s why people like me are often in a cycle lane, pedalling hard on a push bike, when some bloke goes past on an e-bike at twice my speed, even though he’s got slow/fat tyres and is barely pedalling.
I’d guess that 30mph is more typical as a top speed.
Some e-bikes seem too fast to be ‘cycling’ safely in the cycle lanes – and I’m not talking about the Beryl bikes here.
In this article, the e-bike pictured has numerous extra batteries attached, and so this is an obvious modification, but an additional power supply is more easily disguised than what is shown here.
We have to wonder how many delivery e-bikes are actually chasing their jobs while sticking to the 15.5mph limit.
It feels like legislation needs to catch up with what is actually going on, and it doesn’t help that current police numbers are far too small to deal with this as a priority issue.
I’ll add that I think e-bikes are actually good, where they get people out of cars.
The extra batteries could have been used for greater range. Just having more battery does not make the bike faster, just like having a bigger petrol tank does not make your car go faster.
As Billy says above , enabling the motor to produce more power (hardware or software) is where the problem lies.
Bigger battery capacity doesn’t mean a faster bike. it means it has more torque to get up to the 15.5 mph faster, which is a common problem for people with cargo bikes. Add to that the huge weight of the frame and batteries, and it quickly becomes apparent that 250w (500w in the EU) is insufficient and dangerous particularly when pulling away at a junction.
Clueless boomer.
In any case, there was a consultation earlier this year and the limit will soon be 500w.
The motor power output thing is a bit of a farcical law, no matter what the “limit”. A 150kg old person with 20kg of shopping on a cargo ebike weighing 35kg is not going to be able to get over 15.5mph with pedal-assistance even with an illegally powered ebike with, say, a 750Watt output motor…. unless they’re freewheeling down one of the many Brighton hills – in which case the motor is not providing the speed, gravity is! Bear in mind the law of 15.5mph only applies to the “assisted” speed. You’re still allowed to do 50mph on a bike if it’s human power providing the speed. On the other hand, a 50kg child on 10kg bike with a legal 250Watt output motor, where the software has been unlocked to allow more assisted speed, could do 30mph easily.
I’m fat and old (by my own admission). Un-powered bikes overtake me at twice my ebike speed :D:D:D I have slow/fat tyres to take my weight and get less punctures.
Legislation definitely needs to catch up.
The bloke is really unlucky because you can stand on Western Rd and see numerous illegal E-bikes go past. Why they’ve picked him out who knows.
The police have let it go for so long that it’s rare to see a food delivery rider on a bicycle.
All those dodgy batteries are charged overnight in flats around the city like ticking time bombs
Sussex PCC Katy Bourne has been warned about it many times she says nothing to do with me it’s Sussex Road Authority’s problem
It does seem odd that this bike was picked out. Maybe there is a different angle to the story in reality.
Dodgy batteries, yes, ticking time bombs. But most properly certified batteries imported and sold legitimately nowadays through properly authority-regulated supply chains, are certified safe and have BMS (Battery Management Systems) in place to prevent safety issues due to incorrect charging or mis-use. Just as safe as all the other batteries you have in your house, your car, on plane trips etc. (Mobile phones, powerbanks, rechargeable shavers, power tools, rechargeable vacuum cleaners and the like)
Unfortunately the law is very very out of date in relation to bikes and scooters.
Across the UK there has been a massive drive to make towns and cities 20mph. So logic would suggest it’s safer that all vehicles travelling on a road are doing so at the same speed. So 15mph… Means a lot of cars over taking, traffic congestion ect ect.
The law should be really simple.
E bike or E scooter, 20 mph, yearly safety check, insurance, helmet, lights. Fail to stop at traffic lights or infringe on the above points or ride it on a pavement, it gets crushed or a hefty fine.
Makes perfect sense, up to the last seven words, then it goes south. Crushing is just pointless waste. Hefty fine sounds oppressive and dictatorial.
I was surprised when, sitting on a bus going up the steeper section of Braybon Avenus, it was overtaken by an electric scooter. The bus wasn’t going very fast but the scooter passed it easily and carried on up the hill. I don’t know what the normal capabilities would be but presume the power had been enhanced on that scooter. The scooter rider was in shirtsleeves, no helmet or other protective clothes and wearing headphones. It wouldn’t have taken much of a bump in the road’s surface to have thrown the rider off into the path of a vehicle.
As far as I know, all power assisted scooters are illegal on public roads, except those being trialled in city scooter hire schemes in designated areas.
Scooters are a completely different kettle of fish to ebikes in this regard.
Surely the extra batteries would only increase range. The motor would have an output power rating. I have a feeling that the wrong end of the stick is being reported here, but it is still a stick. Maybe the extra batteries were what got the rider noticed and stopped at first, and then there were subsequently discovered motor power output contraventions?
The speed limit on these bikes and responsibility, accountability and behaviour of riders should be the real issue, not the motor power. A heavy unfit person with a 500W output motor, larger/heavier ebike (illegal) probably cannot get up to 15mph, and even less so if they’re carrying cargo, shopping, or kids in a kid carrier; whereas a small, light fit person with no cargo on a lighter ebike could easily do in excess of 30mph with a 250W output motor on a perfectly legal ebike. Add the hills of Brighton to those equations and the disparity is exacerbated further.
I have an ebike and I’m frequently getting overtaken by standard bicycles! hahahahaha.
Dodgy batteries being charged in flats overnight being ticking timebombs is also something that is to do with responsibility and accountability, and I think the onus for that should be on law enforcement toward importers and suppliers. I think most ebikes nowadays have BMS (Battery Management Systems) for correct, safe charging and batteries are manufactured to certified standards. It wasn’t so long ago that a popular brand of mobile phone had batteries that were exploding and catching fire in homes and on planes, but nobody has any issue with mobile phones being in homes now.
I agree and also think that the ebike law is out of date. I think at the moment, (in addition to other laws that already cover any bicycle or rider), for ebikes there are only three: 1) power assist must only be from the pedals, not a throttle, 2) max “assisted” speed must be 15.5mph – but un-assisted speed can be anything??? 3) the motor power rated output must not be more than 250W (irrespective of size and weight of bike, rider and/or passengers?). None of those really make sense as laws.
As for “if riding on a pavement it gets crushed or a hefty fine” – that sounds a bit like its bordering on hateful and targeted to me. Does it apply to a green-minded sweet grandmother with her young grandchild cycling at 4mph to school and passing on the pavement due to vans parked in the cycle lane and reckless cars doing twice the speed limit on the narrow road? Or is that just for greedy, risky food delivery cyclists speeding to get more money? How many people “Dismount and walk” their bikes through the 10 yard portion of road/pavement works where it says “Cyclists please dismount”? What about cyclists on the seafront path that clearly do not “give way” at the “give way” markings at pedestrian points along the promenade? Why would anyone want a bike crushed for anything – what a waste 🙂 (unless you’re into metal recycling business?)
We need to share the road safely and responsibly and in order to regulate that, for ebikes maybe there needs to be knowledge/education (basic bike riding test/license), safety rules – lights, helmets, certified batteries, yearly MOT, insurance – maybe even a road tax for bikes to contribute toward the cycling infrastructure.
Scooters and ebikes are two completely different kettles of fish.
Maybe, just bring the penny-farthing back?
Always see deliveroo, just eat and Uber eat riders with questionable right to work status riding these death traps.
Gives normal cyclists a bad image, get them off our streets.
(Assumed) right to work status has nothing to do with eBike laws. They are only death traps if supplied, maintained and ridden irresponsibly.
And these cyclists are often seen on footpaths competing with pedestrians.
It’s wrong if they’re not supposed to be there in the first place, and if it’s a shared bicycle/pedestrian footpath or pavement (which many are these days) then it’s wrong if they’re “competing” with pedestrians. I think that’s the problem, everyone is “competing” for rather than “sharing” space. It’s not just cyclists with pedestrians, it’s pedestrians with other pedestrians too. But even when on a sharing path, there are rules to help us, pedestrians have priority over bicycles. Simples.
simples are cyclists who ride on foot paths
Simples are most people in most situations. It’s life.
The “extra-powered” bike in the pic looks as though it has been used to trek across the Amazon jungle.
It can’t have been very much “extra-powered” as the rider couldn’t even evade capture!
Can you imagine the pain those snipped cable ties on the top “extra battery” would inflict on the crotch…
I think I’ve figured this one out…
Someone has successfully managed to trick the police into inadvertently helpfully disposing of their unwanted p.o.s. old bicycle for them 😀
Good to read intelligent and knowledgeable comments on this subject. Not much for me to add apart from you can usually spot the illegal ebikes from the size of the rear hob motor…or that they aren’t pedalling. Regulation, enforcement and public awareness needs to catch up.
Not sure about the not pedalling being a reliable indicator. Once again, two ways of looking at it. I’m a heavy guy with a heavy ebike… once I’ve got going, momentum keeps me going a fair way without more pedalling, especially on a smooth flat road with the wind behind me (I’m not just heavy, but wide too). Once, even on a normal bike back then, not even an ebike, I went from Devil’s Dike to Hove Lawns without pedalling once! And then from Hove Lawns to Rottingdean along the seafront and undercliff path and hardly pedalled at all with the wind. (Coming back was a nightmare though!)
Regulation, enforcement and public awareness needs to catch up – totally agree!