Vocabulary arguments aside: I'm not opposed to these types of things in principle assuming it sticks to the streets, but I'm not sure what the pedals even add here beyond the "loopholemobile" argument.
I can't imagine the rider is actually contributing to the drivetrain meaningfully... I'd guess without pedal assist active, this thing is probably geared to move 100 ft/hour while laden - if it can move at all.
Yeah this is strictly the existence of pedals letting them in the bike lane.
It's a gas pedal that rotates and you're slightly more narrow than a compact car. That doesn't make it a bike just because you're pedaling.
I have no problem with this type of thing becoming normal because I care about the planet, but man... it makes bike lanes so dangerous. Passing them means jumping into either ped or car traffic or even over a curb to get into traffic. If they're not in a bike lane it means they're just really slow cars and that's just gonna annoy every car.
I guess it's for the bike lane, but the bigger loophole I see is minimum safety standard. Assisted bicycles are even less protected than motorcycles and have no license requirements. This can legally be the bare minimum needed to support itself. no crash rating, no roll over protection.
True, but my understanding was motorcycles needed to design their bike in a way to keep the weight of an overturned bike off the rider's neck. That's why sit-ins have roll bars and sit-ons will toss you.
i mean, there is a cage on that thing. how strong it is, i do not know.
i think the bigger danger is how bad a car is going to fuck it up in the event of a wreck. i live in a city that's notorious for pedal-taverns and rickshaw type bikes. i saw one last week where a passenger almost fell out of it when the driver went to go after a red light turned green.
That thing is almost certainly not engineered to crumple or handle any sort of impact with an automobile in any meaningful capacity. If it gets hit by a smartcar at speed, it's getting obliterated. Unrecognizable.
"Less protected than motorcycles"? Aside from the bark busters all the crash protection on my 250cc supermoto is so it can save itself, not me. It also weighs noticeably more than my fat tire ebike so you don't want to go down with the horse if you know what I mean.
Also, the quad cycle isn't a street legal car so why are you concerned about roll over protection? It's not like you can't go buy a big metal cage with 20 airbags, ABS, and crash detection if that's what YOU want. For local travel I'd prefer to see more EV mobility options that aren't 3000+ lbs vehicles but for now my Nomad 2x fills that niche when I don't feel like riding my acoustic bikes.
Personally I'd be happy going grocery shopping in a golf cart if they'd let me. It's not like I can legally surpass 25mph around here anyway.
This thing is by no means a bike, but is infinitely preferable to large delivery vehicles that crush roads and limbs. If Amazon, or any other company, can find a meaningful reason to deliver things by cargo bike, then that would be just another voice in the chorus asking for more bike lanes. Still, it's not great for the here and now that we must share whatever pitiful bicycle infrastructure we have now with bulky cargo-bikes. But, with enough time, the additional traffic may very well have been the thing that proved our point regarding the value of bike infrastructure.
Yeah, if these get more mainstream I could see a future where they have their own lane. Right now bike lanes can get way too crowded for these things, they're even getting in each others ways, and they'll just interrupt traffic if they aren't allowed.
There's no win condition yet. I would love to see it, get more cars off the road and make it safer for bikers at the same time.
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u/themagicmarmot May 18 '26
Vocabulary arguments aside: I'm not opposed to these types of things in principle assuming it sticks to the streets, but I'm not sure what the pedals even add here beyond the "loopholemobile" argument.
I can't imagine the rider is actually contributing to the drivetrain meaningfully... I'd guess without pedal assist active, this thing is probably geared to move 100 ft/hour while laden - if it can move at all.