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this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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most ebikes already go slower, or on par at max speed with an amateur/relatively fit cyclist. roughly 25 to 30kmph.
going after fat tire bikes specifically doesnt really make sense considering they offer more traction for stopping power. if they legally limit the speed it should be on par with elite level cyclists at most. which is about 50 to 60kmph. depending on the area. nobody wants to wipe out and hurt themselves or somebody else.
this is a way for them to add tickets and licensing for people who wish to circumvent owning a vehicle or taking public transit. which the government and corporations directly benefit from financially.
i just dont see the point besides fear mongering in a place where virtuallly everyone has a bike, and cycling accidents are less lethal than vehicular ones. it just seems like an unfair represention of statistics to prop up a bottom line that only serves to extract wealth from the poor, less well off, environementally or financially concious.
if parents dont want their kids to take those risks, then dont buy them an ebike. buy them a regular one, or tell them to take public tranist if they cant offer it themselves.
they always use children as a way to shoe in control with fear tactics.
as an bike/ebike rider. i have a bike that can go about 45kmph and never go over 25 personally, as that feels like a safe speed in my city with the infrastructure and crossings that we have. every incident that has happened to me has come from vehicles doing illegal turns, crossings, or not looking where traffic is coming from before pulling out into the street.
if anything they should focus on getting more people to ride bikes/ebikes, and offering safety courses for those who wish to own ebikes. free of charge.
if they want to regulate them, regulate braking power vs speed potential. and helmets. and create separated concrete barrier bike lanes with covers for weather and wind to avoid ice buildup and snow. fat tire bikes are nearly a necessity for cyclists in colder climate.
They are talking about banning fat “bikes” not fat tire bikes. They are basically electric motorcycles disguised as an e-bike.
Like this one:
There is already regulation and they should be speed limited. But these bikes are designed to unlock the limit very easily.
These are fucking motorcycles.
Somehow you took statistics about elevated injuries on a specific product and made it about race. It's not like other ebikes aren't an option. Wild...
its almost like race, regulations, and monopolies, have a history of being ......correlated, or something?
strange. did you know that?
but its totally not like the media to give just one angle of seemingly simple situation, that couldnt POSSIBLY go any deeper, right?
competitors and monopolies certainly dont like to influence politics whatsoever by fuelling fear and discent amongst the population. that would be just down right unethical, especially if they did so to regulate certain industries bit by bit to slowly change the economic landscape.... but european countries are completely incapable of even the smallest forms of corruption in their politics. everyone knows that! doy! im so silly!
they represent the common man, every time! certainly not the elite class. no, never!
perhaps i should stop pouring over articles, and researching all these topics day after day, for hours on end.
seems like a simple existence, compeletly devoid of critical thought or a thirst for knowledge over the worlds inner machinations. just coasting on headlines and trust in the government and the system itself.
nothing negative can happen to our rights and freedoms by simply switching our brains off, can it?
its not like thats why the world is the way that it is, no sir! no relation whatsoever!
thanks, friend :D
I'm not saying you're wrong, but your style of rant is a bit unhinged so it will be hard to win people over like that.
i appreciate your honesty, im simply here to state a point. people can choose whether or not they prefer fluff to facts.
i may sound erratic, but thats because theres a lot of unhinged bullshit behind virtually everything humans do. and the fact that almost nobody gives a fuck about digging and connecting the dots to see the wider picture makes feel like im taking crazy pills for being well informed.
it sounds crazy, until you look into it.
believe me, i know. lol.
Do you think that only minorities ride fat bikes? This has nothing to do with race or xenophobia or what the fuck else. It's a direct reaction to an outlier of injuries related to that specific type of ebike, and the ban proposal is only in specific areas. This has nothing to do with race. To try and draw some bullshit correlation is fucking stupid.
The world is certainly full of racist driven policies. This is not that, unless again, you think that only minorities ride fat bikes or a disproportionate amount of fat bike riders are minorities.
Your whole argument is built on generalities that don't apply to this situation involving public safety.
re read what i wrote. then come back and try again.
We've all read what you said, and it's dumb.
Bye.
Yeah, like it was easy to mod a moped to go beyond the speed limit (45Km/h in Italy), but it was still illegal.
Or, maybe, is about closing a loophole that allow people to drive bikes more powerfull than the one that need a driver's license without a driver's license. Are brown people excluded from obtaining a driver's license in Amsterdam ? No, so they can simple get a driver's license like everyone else.
Not everything is about races even if you think so.
It is about following the traffic regulations. I agree that the ebikes were a nice idea when the electric side of the it was really just just a little help but now, honestly, what I see are ebikes that are more powerfull of the moped for which you need the license.
Yeah, only difference is that the death wagon at 150 Km/h is not driven on the sidewalk and you need e license to drive it.
So, why is it a problem to ask to follow the laws ? You can ride a bike, it is not a problem, but you need to follow the rules.
sure is, but a human cyclist can ride up to 60kmph unassisted. yet no license for that.
recent immigrants are excluded from obtaining a drivers license until they pass a drivers test, or have one from a country with similar laws. in the meantime, many refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants, etc are poor and need a way to get around and make money, without taking out thousands, to tens of thousands of dollars in debt, plus fees. so they resort to using ebikes, or regular bikes, public transit, uber, etc. to get around. ebikes are a great way for them to get work doing delivery service in well populated areas. and that has obviously lead to a lot of contention on that subject. ignoring that variable in a much larger equation will give skewed results. so dont ignore it.
i dont disagree, i just dont believe banning specific vehicles or ebikes will solve the issue.
and that still doesnt stop it from being the deadliest thing any human can get in or be around on a daily basis. stats do not lie about that in any sense.
the rules in this case are banning a particular type of vehicle commonly driven in the area by immigrants doing delivery service or travelling for work, or just in general. and seeing as its amsterdam, a place that has been known to be racist and xenophobic due to decades of cannabis related tourism (amongst other reasons) gives cadence to the fact that recent fluctuations of people fleeing destablized countries arent assimilating the way they are wanted to by locals, and established businesses/corporations. this kind of event always leads to a slurry of new laws and regulations that will please the consistent local registered voter base. the local voter base primarily being white european people who have had a significant uptick in hate crimes and fascistic ideation as of late, all across europe. but also in amsterdam. which, fun fact, is where anne fuckin franks house is. so its not like its historically accurate to say amsterdam isnt susceptable to making policy changes, at least partly based on hate or profit.
banning one model leads to another, and another, and another. a new law, a new regulation, a new business model, higher taxes, higher fees, bigger punishments, more turmoil, its always a slippery slope. and the immigrants historically speaking are a wonderful catalyst for making these changes, either directly, or indirectly. conciously or unconciously, most people just dont question it. pop pop knows best.
banning one bike just makes it easier for them to ban more and push the boot down just a little harder, squeezing more money out of all of us.
it also doesnt solve the problem and is a waste if tax dollars until you consider the legal leverage it gives the political class over the minorities that also drive these things.
Well, while it is true that you can reach this top velocity, it is not a cruising speed. There is a difference between been able to reach a speed and been able to maintain that speed.
If you are able to maintain 60 km/h for an hour, you could just give a try to the hour record
Being a recent immigrant has nothing to do with being excluded from obtaining a driver license until they pass a driver test, this is how it work for everyone: it work this way also for a a Dutch person born in Amsterdam: he has to attend driving school to get it. So where is exactly the discrimination ?
While I agree that they need to move (like everyone else btw) I do not agree on the fact that they should break the law to do it.
I don't agree. While it is true that it can be dangerous, the death for car accident in Italy where a little more than 3000. For comparison in the first 7 months of 2025 there were a little less than 900 work related deaths. In 2024 there where a little more than 1000 work related death. So while I acknowledge that there are too many victims of car accident, I don't think it is the deadliest thing.
So, still the question: why immigrant cannot follow the laws of the country hosting them ?
I mean, if I would emigrate to Japan I would follow their laws and while I maybe are not able to integrate completely given the differences in culture probably I would be way more integrate that not even following their laws. I can maintain my traditions at home, I doubt that any Japanese would say something if I had my tipical Christmas lunch instead of their traditional lunch.
Same in Amsterdam (or many other place in EU), these immigrants are not integrated because they understand that they can do whatever they want and if someone ask (or force) them to follow the laws of the country immediatly people like you make an excuses about why they can not (or should not) follow them.
It would be better to let them to drive these fat ebikes or whatever they want but just make sure that every every traffic violation is punished (with a fine or whatever) ?
If you say so...
Yeah, yeah, making laws just make it easier for them to make more laws and push the boot down just a little harder and squeezing more money out of all of us. Sound better this way ?
What if everyone just start to follow the actual laws ? Maybe new laws that ban something new would not be necessary, don't you think ?
im not writing another wall of text just to have a mod who doesnt like my opinion remove it.
just imagine being scared of a bicycle because an article told you to be....smh
good luck nerfing the world yall, you can regulate my phat dick'n'bawlz......cope and seethe :D
Maybe you should nave not tried to spin a decision about enforcing traffic rules as something about people's race.
The problem, and it seems you still do not understand it, is that these kind of ebike are more powerfull than vehicles for which you need a driver's license.
The simple question is: why I should need a driver's license for a moped that (legally) cannot be faster than 45 Km/h and not for a fatbike that is faster (and often less secure) ?
what a fragile white guy thing to latch onto, out of all the things i said.....how telling.
no i understand it completely, ive just read more than just this article on subjects surrounding this issue and similar ones than you have, and i have first hand experience in the subject. evidently. you keep pointing to one article like its the bible and ignore all the other related data. you also keep latching on to my comments on one racial aspect of laws like this, which historically have also had racial diacrimination attached as a partial motive in the past, instead of going after the ones i made about monopolies, corporate interest. etc. because you are likely a fragile as fuck white person and likely harbour resentment for being called out on your shit. or, if not then you are woefully ignorant or maybe just naive when it comes to the struggles and current discrimination against immigrants of all backgrounds in europe, and across the world.
evidently, you were triggered by that, which us why you wont let it go.
in one of comments that was removed by the SUPER FAIR AND DILIGENT MOD TEAM i had made a statement about how its a pointless law becuase people modify their bikes, ebikes, and other heavy ebikes to circumvent every law they pass, surrounding them. and how this is mainly just another money grab that slowly pinches down harder on average people just trying to use a safer, and cheaper mode of travel than a petrol vehicle. they know this, prior to making the law. a great example would be how in germany this past year, a radical who hated immigrants took a vehicle and drove over people at the german christmas market.
it would be a lot harder to get that same level of carnage on a bike, or ebike.
i connect a lot of dots for you, and you refuse to connect them yourself, you get hung up on one racial aspect of my theory on why laws like this come to pass and what benefits they have for the police state, which would be enforcing these laws, who base their entire criminal science on a certain level of racial discrimination. and call it profiling.
we will have to agree to disagree. because this is something that you are either willfully remaining ignorant of, or simply dont see it as a negative. im not sure which is worse.
as an ebike user, who obeys the laws of my land, and drives on the street, banning one make or model of an ebike will not stop the issue. they know this. and its being done as a stepping stone for more regulation and more laws, that have more than "safety" as the main motivator. it always starts small.
regulation always leads to increased powers of the government over the people. some of it for good reasons, some of it for bad reasons. but it always cost tax payers more money as a result. and fear is always the motivator.
there, you got a little wall of text out of me. if you want you can DM me if you actually care about discourse, or if you prefer a stage where differing opinions than yours are removed, then you can reply to me here.
they permanently banned a guy named "fatbikelover" for his replies that agreed with my statements, and then removed more of my detailed comments describing exactly how the whole extraction of wealth and discrimination actually works.
however, arguing is pointless with me, i only change my mind with verifiable evidence and data. if you cant prove that there is no racial descrimination or innate racism amongst the police force that would be enforcing these laws, then i simply cant agree with your statement. but considering how that is quite literally part of police training, and general media programming, regardless of any country we speak of, its gonna be a hard sell.
monopolies, corporate interests, thats a little harder to prove without a paper trail. so if you want to disagree with me, start there. but i can imagine that some local ebike shops are likely to benefit off the absence of a cheap foreign alternative. who knows.
grab a shovel and dig up some dirt. and try not to use ChatGPT this time. its more fun that way.
Then there are only 2 solutions: you either change the traffic regulations or you enforce them. Amsterdam choose to enforce them.
Everything else is just noise.