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Parents Are Accidentally Buying Their Kids Electric Motorcycles Instead Of E-Bikes
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this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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micromobility - Bikes, scooters, boards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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Conventionally, bicycles require the rider to provide the power through leg movement, whereas motorcycles require the rider to twist a handle.
Ebikes have blurred the line here with some having pedal assist and others having throttle control. It's not as cut and dry as everything with two wheels and an electric motor being the same thing.
Some have both. Like Onyx bikes. They have vestigial pedals and a throttle. Tried peddling one without the throttle and it was like peddling a bike underwater
Edit: I conflated peddles with peddle assist. The Onyx that I rode had peddles, but not peddle assist. The peddles are just for show so they can pass as an e bike while actually being an electric motorcycle
I'm uncertain if you tried pedalling an Onyx ebike that had a throttle you didn't use while riding it, or if you tried peddling some other ebike that had power assist but no throttle control.
Either way, something with pedal assist shouldn't feel like riding underwater even if the battery is dead. Similar to an escalator becoming stairs in a power failure, an ebike should just become a bike. Though it would be noticeably heavier.
I suppose how well it does unpowered is more an indication of build quality though. Certainly some ebikes are so shoddy they are practically unrideable when the battery is depleted.