Spend any time riding around south-east Queensland, and you’ll spot something that’ll make any cycling tragic do a double-take.
They look like a bike, especially when underway. But look closer, and three critical components are nowhere to be seen. Foot pegs replace pedals, a battery replaces human power, and a powerful hub motor replaces drive cogs and the fundamental component of all bikes since around 1885, the chain.
What you’re seeing are throttle-only electric vehicles — essentially electric motorcycles — being marketed, sold, converted and ridden as e-bikes.
They have pegs bolted where the bottom bracket would be, a twist or lever-action throttle, and nothing at all between the frame and the rear hub, except maybe a power cable.
Brisbane and the Gold Coast seem to be ground zero for the proliferation of these chainless & pedal-less ‘bikes’, and their numbers seem to be rapidly rising. Recently riding through Cleveland on Brisbane’s bayside, we saw five kids playing on their bikes. On closer inspection, three were on throttle-only e-bikes, and the other two were pushing pedals.
The thing is, they are not bikes, and not e-bikes either. Let’s name them what they are, as Queensland police have in this recent news story - they’re electric motorcycles.
The distinction matters just as much legally as it does semantically.
Under Australian law, a genuine e-bike must have pedals and a motor that assists pedalling, with a power output capped at 250W and a speed limit of 25km/h. A throttle-only, pedal-less machine is legally classified as a motor vehicle and requires registration and a licence, like any petrol or battery-powered motorcycle.
That hasn’t stopped a booming local industry. A quick online search shows numerous businesses selling fat-tyre electric machines, and a scroll through their range reveals child-specific pedal and chain-less models squarely aimed at young riders. An example is the Lil’ Rippa kids’ model in pretty pastel colours, marketed with 35km/h speeds and a two-hour range.
Devices without pedals and unrestricted throttles are technically restricted to private property or off-road use only, though enforcement on bikeways and footpaths remains limited. In reality, they’re prolific in public areas throughout south-east Queensland and many other parts of the nation as well.
A bike without pedals isn’t a bike, electric balance bike or e-bike . It’s a motorbike, and it’s time we started treating them as such.