Get the motorcycles out of the bike lane
The deputies who patrol our streets can already tell the difference. Our municipal code cannot.
I asked the deputies who patrol Rancho Santa Margarita what they actually deal with out here. They did not say speeding. They said e-bikes. And then they said the part that matters: a lot of them are not e-bikes at all.
California draws the line in a specific place. An electric bicycle has working pedals and a motor that does not exceed 750 watts, and since the first of January that is a hard ceiling at peak power rather than a continuous-output average. Strip the pedals, fit a bigger motor, and you no longer have a bicycle. You have a motorcycle, and a motorcycle needs a licence, a plate and insurance, and does not belong in a bike lane, on a sidewalk or on a trail.
So I read our municipal code. Rancho Santa Margarita does have an e-bike ordinance, Chapter 12.08, on the books since September 2024. It covers helmets for riders under eighteen, five miles an hour on a sidewalk, ten on a paved trail, no wheelies, no riding in city parks, and it sets escalating fines. It runs to five sections.
It never defines an electric motorcycle. Not once. The machines that worry the deputies most are the ones our own code has the least to say about.
San Clemente wrote the definition into its code last year, in a single sentence: more than 750 watts with no operable pedals is not an electric bicycle and is treated as a motorcycle. The same Sheriff’s Department that patrols our streets enforces that language one city over. This is not a novel idea and it does not need a study. It needs a council member to put it on an agenda.
Let me be plain about who this is not aimed at. If your child rides a real e-bike to school, this protects them. Drawing the line is what separates their bike from a motorcycle doing forty past a crosswalk, and it gets the motorcycle out of the lane they ride in. I am not asking deputies to chase teenagers. I am asking the city to give them a definition they can act on, and to tell parents and bike shops what the rules are before anyone gets hurt rather than after.
What I will do
- Bring an ordinance defining an electric motorcycle in our own code: more than 750 watts with no operable pedals is a motorcycle, not a bicycle, matching state law and San Clemente’s adopted language.
- Require every shop selling or renting an e-bike in Rancho Santa Margarita to hand the buyer the rules and keep proof of it, so the conversation happens at the counter instead of at the curb.
- Ask in public, at a council meeting, how many citations have been written under Chapter 12.08 since it passed and how many riders have been through the safety class it authorises. Residents should not have to guess whether a law is being used.
- Add the two rules our chapter is missing and San Clemente already has: a minimum age after dark with proper lights, and no passenger unless the device was built to carry one.
- Say yes to the deputies on the record. Clear definitions, published numbers and a class that is actually running are what support looks like from a council member.