The Confusing World of Personal Electric Vehicles

Getting from Point A to Point B has never had so many options. And it has led to confusion and dismay.

I’m talking about personal electric vehicles, not cars or motorcycles. That’s the accepted term for them, although there are some four-letter words used a well. This transportation segment includes bikes, scooters, unicycles, hoverboards and more. We’ve seen them all over town, on sidewalks and in the street. Probably the biggest discussion today centers around the laws and rules for different classes of electric bikes.

The legislature is trying to better define the rules around them because there have been a lot of accidents.

The E-Bike Rundown

Electric bikes start with Class 1. The bike is purely pedal assist. It won’t drive itself. It will help (assist) when you are pedaling, up to 20 mph. This is the class of my bike and it is normally allowed on trails.

A Class 2 bike is much like the Class 1 pedal assist except that it includes a throttle to drive itself up to 20 mph. This is handy when you get tired, especially riding up Red Wing hills.

Class 3 electric bikes are identical to Class 1 (no throttle) except that they have more power and the assist tops out at 28 mph. That’s too fast for some trails. These bikes are more suited to riding on city streets, allowing them to keep up with traffic. As a reminder, 28 mph on a bike is quite fast. Even 20 seems fast to me.

The bikes trails around Red Wing allow electric bikes but have some special rules for them. The Cannon Valley Trail between Red Wing and Cannon Falls allows Class 1 and 2 bikes, with a speed limit of 20. The Hay Creek Trail allows any electric bike as long as it stays at 20 mph or less.

The bike trail from the high school to Highway 61 along Flower Valley Road is short and has no rule signs that I could see. All the trails around Red Wing will eventually be connected to other trails so you could ride between a large number of towns in southeastern Minnesota.

Now, here’s where it gets murky. Red Wing has local ordinances regarding e-bikes and for the most part, they follow state law. All bikes must be walked on downtown sidewalks. Age requirements vary, depending on bike class, as do helmet laws.

But Wait, There’s More

Then there are the e-scooters and e-motos. E-scooters are electric scooters that users stand on and press a throttle. They have small wheels but can still go 20+ mph. In Red Wing, they are not to be ridden on sidewalks. They are supposed to be used in street traffic, which doesn’t seem safe to me. They are not allowed on bike trails.

E-motos are essentially small electric motorcycles. They are are strictly throttle-controlled and are too powerful and fast (to highway speeds) for usual bike trails and sidewalks. They usually don’t even have operable pedals. Yet, they are being sold as e-bikes by skirting some legal and safety requirements. That and other e-moto concerns are part of what the legislature is discussing.

One consideration with any of these modes of e-transport is that you need to be sure you don’t run out of power miles from home. Some long trails in remote areas don’t allow e-bikes because it can be dangerous if the battery runs out. You can ride an e-bike with a dead battery, but it’s really difficult.

A local biking concern is the loss of the Red Wing Bicycle Co. store. I don’t know the particulars, but it must be difficult to run a year-round business that’s based on only about six months of active sales and service.

When these kinds of businesses leave, it affects people like me that, in my retirement, don’t want to deal with servicing our bikes. I’m not aware of any other local bike sales and service businesses like the one that closed.

There are some nice bike trails around Red Wing and they are getting improved and expanded. I’m anxious to ride on the new trail extension from the He Mni Can-Barn Bluff parking lot to Colvill Park which should be finished this spring.

Eventually, the hope is to have the bike trail connect that parking lot back to downtown on the bluff’s north side. And someday, that bike trail should continue south to Lake City.

I’ll keep my riding to mostly short, local routes for now. There’s plenty to see and it changes every day.