New ILL Law SB0236 Only For 1 HP

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"But someday, maybe they will."

True enough, Arceeguy. We never really know when the other shoe will drop.

But in this case I doubt if they were trying to deny us the right to ride in a sneaky way. l'll bet that they were afraid of people making monster machines and decided to limit size. They said, "One Horsepower?...Yeah, that sounds about right.." Yup, it was negligent of them to not look into the matter a bit more, but negligence in legislation is a very old problem.

We can, and should, lobby them for a more realistic limit. Just be prepared for it to take forever.

In the meantime there is another strategy that will help us. (I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think it bears constant repetition);

Ride like a responsible member of traffic.

This not only gains us the respect of the police (which is useful), it also gains us a measure of respect from the motorists (which is a matter of life and death)

There've been a few members here who detailed their fights with the law. But when I read between the lines I saw people who were just itching for a fight. I can think of one who didn't really seem to hate the police, but he proudly declared himself to be a speed demon. He didn't have the sense (hope I'm not insulting him. he wasn't a bad guy) to "fly below the radar".

Really, that's all we have to do. It won't guarantee that we'll never be hassled by a cop with an attitude. But it plays the odds in our favor.
 
1 hp. That is about what I run. 23cc Mitsubishi friction drive. Goes 20 something mph. It seems to be about as fast as a 48cc HT motor setup.
 
It is my understanding that in ILL you have to title, register, license, and insure any moped. Until this law, this means that all motored bikes would need all of the above. Does this law allow <1hp mBikes to fly without title, etc?
 
When I looked into it, in anticipation of my first build, in the spring of 2008 the literature that I found at the Sec/State office seemed to indicate that these were mopeds, with all of those legal (and, realistically, unobtainable) requirements. It was disheartening.

But I found a loophole. I'm sorry, I don't actually remember just what it was. But it was a clear distinction between these and mopeds. From that point on I have held the opinion that the laws simply did not take these bikes into account at all. That they were neither explicitly legal or illegal. This is only my opinion, but my experience seems to bear it out. I've been riding a lot since. The police for many miles around recognize me and they have never once given me a second look.

But to get to johnrobholmes actual question; this new law will apparently recognize motor assisted bicycles, under 1 HP, as the exact legal equivalent of un-motored bicycles. This will not apply to happy times and other such engines, I guess.

But I still regard it as a step forward.
 
Yes, the new law refers to motorized bicycles as "low-speed gas bicycle," "a 2 or 3-wheeled device with fully operable pedals and a gasoline motor of less than one horsepower ... ." They are not mopeds, and no license is needed to drive them.
 
Resistance Is Futile

...as I've been observing for some time, the Federal Ebike Law is the first of it's kind and it sets a universal standard for what something that "isn't" a motorcycle (or moped) is supposed to look like.

From now on the division is going to split the "1 hp / Pedals / 20 mph" Federal Ebike Legal machines from the rest of the pack.

You will be assimilated... (or else separated into another category)

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Moped laws are all over the place and I suspect that in the end the gasoline "motorized bike" will eventually be shifted into the moped category over time and out of the bike area. It's actually kind of weird that they aren't all considered mopeds right now. This might mean that a "motorized bike" could be subject to registration while the Federally legal bike is not in this future scenario.

I'm not making a statment of emotion here either... this is just the flow of events... you can fight the flow, but not always change it. (there are many forces that are pushing the consolidation of the laws so that a single standard comes to be accepted)

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I realized the inevitability of consolidation back in 2007 and have focused all my efforts to design around it. If you can't beat the law, then find ways to work around it.

Think about the poor Australians... their laws restrict all bikes to 200 watts. :sick:
 
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I tried a 48cc roundhead, 500watt golden motor and a 23cc friction drive kit on a Moondog bicycle and they were all about the same top speed.

23cc friction drive is the fastest but not by much. 500w Goldenmotor the slowest. All less than 25mph top speed with me on it (175lbs).

The 23cc is rated at about 1 hp. I am not sure because different weedwacker makers that use this engine rate it at different numbers and it is not marked on the motor.

500 watts = .67 hp. Matt (150lbs) did 23mph, checked with gps.

I am not so sure the 48cc roundhead is sending over 1 hp to the rear wheel.
 
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It is my understanding that in IL you have to title, register, license, and insure any moped. Until this law, this means that all motored bikes would need all of the above. Does this law allow <1hp mBikes to fly without title, etc?
You heard right, but weren't informed right:

A moped does need to be titled, registered and insured, but "a bicycle with an engine on it" doesn't qualify as a moped.

In IL a motorized bicycle cannot be titled as a moped, because the IL Dept of Motor Vehicles requires that any "motor vehicle" titled to have a federal-standard 17-digit VIN (they need the VIN to put on the title itself). Bicycles have manufacturer serial numbers, but those do not qualify as VINs. The sec. of state can assign VINs to vintage motorcycles, but there's no provision in the motor vehicle code to allow the IL sec. of state to assign VINs to bicycles.

So,,, (in IL)--nothing built on a bicycle frame can qualify as a moped.
~
 
Interesting, so basically they fall through the cracks until this bill came along.

Muddy law.
 
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