I've been a long time motorcyclist so I get having "fun" with motors. Personally I gave that up to ride 100% human powered bicycles for a variety of reasons \[Mostly health benefits, environmental impact and cost\].
I have no issue with people wanting access to public trails. I do have an issue with lumping in human powered MTBs with mopeds. If the mopeders and the companies that want to make and sell mopeds advocate successfully for trail access by dealing with all the same issues MTBers have....great. I don't like the argument it's just a mountain bike...please ignore the motor. This simple and obvious step would address a significant source of the negativity between the MTB community and the budding moped community.
My other concern is I have never seen a motorized sport where people didn't hack their machines to go longer and faster. So I expect no matter what gets sold at the moped shop we'll end up seeing machines that are de-restricted for higher speeds, are equipped with thumb throttles and have extended battery range to power them. I can see no practical way to enforce what is a legal moped vs. what is a hacked moped. There just isn't a reasonable way to do so.
April 22, 2020, 6:53 a.m. - Vik Banerjee
I've been a long time motorcyclist so I get having "fun" with motors. Personally I gave that up to ride 100% human powered bicycles for a variety of reasons \[Mostly health benefits, environmental impact and cost\]. I have no issue with people wanting access to public trails. I do have an issue with lumping in human powered MTBs with mopeds. If the mopeders and the companies that want to make and sell mopeds advocate successfully for trail access by dealing with all the same issues MTBers have....great. I don't like the argument it's just a mountain bike...please ignore the motor. This simple and obvious step would address a significant source of the negativity between the MTB community and the budding moped community. My other concern is I have never seen a motorized sport where people didn't hack their machines to go longer and faster. So I expect no matter what gets sold at the moped shop we'll end up seeing machines that are de-restricted for higher speeds, are equipped with thumb throttles and have extended battery range to power them. I can see no practical way to enforce what is a legal moped vs. what is a hacked moped. There just isn't a reasonable way to do so.