By Erik Noonan | June 9, 2026
A city department posts a graphic or video. A TV station runs a segment. Someone shares a screenshot, and then another, and by the time it’s made three laps around social media it’s calcified into fact. In an era when AI search tools are pulling from social posts and news coverage to generate answers, inaccurate sourcing doesn’t stay contained to the platform it started on — it gets summarized, repeated, and served up as the authoritative answer to anyone who goes looking.
Minnesota did not pass new laws governing e-bikes this session. There is no helmet mandate for youth e-bike riders. There is no new local authority to set e-bike-specific speed limits. There is no new position at the Department of Public Safety. None of it passed. None of it became law.
These provisions were proposed — as late amendments to HF 3785, our e-moto clarification bill — and their addition is largely why the bill didn’t advance in the House. Proposed and blocked is not the same as enacted, and right now people are being told otherwise.
Blaine PD shared a post this spring that got it wrong. Fox 9 ran a segment that needed a correction — they made the update, and we’re grateful, but the original video is still circulating on their socials and has been viewed by tens of thousands. We’ve seen about half a dozen other cities, departments, and community pages post similar misinformation. We’re not going down the list. The goal here isn’t to embarrass anyone. It’s to stop the spread before it gets someone cited for a law that doesn’t exist.
What Actually Happened
HF 3785 / SF 4186 was more than eight months of work — BikeMN alongside MnDOT, the Department of Public Safety, law enforcement, trail managers, retailers, and legislators from both parties. The bill clarified one thing in Minnesota statute: e-motos are not e-bikes.
The 2026 Electric-Assisted Bicycle Youth Operation Study, produced jointly by MnDOT and DPS, confirmed what BikeMN has been saying for years. The devices causing problems on trails and roadways aren’t legal e-bikes. They’re e-motos — heavier, faster machines that exceed the 750-watt and 20-mph federal thresholds that define a legal e-bike. The behavior people are upset about has a source, and the source isn’t a Class 2 e-bike.
HF 3785 had broad bipartisan support. It moved through committee. Then, in the final days of session, amendments were attached that MnDOT didn’t ask for, DPS didn’t ask for, and the bill’s House authors didn’t want. The bill died. Those amendments are now circulating as law.
On the Youth Helmet Mandate
The proposed requirement — helmets for e-bike riders ages 15 to 18 — was added late and was a significant reason the House wouldn’t pass the bill.
BikeMN’s position on mandatory helmet laws hasn’t changed: we believe in helmets and we oppose mandates. We provide them free at our educational events. We think access and education are how you get more kids wearing helmets, not citations.
The practical problems with this amendment are serious. You are proposing to fine or charge minors who can’t afford a helmet, lost one, or forgot it. You are asking law enforcement to pursue children on trails and roadways over a safety equipment violation. Vehicle pursuit of a minor on a bike — on a shared trail, on a city street — carries a real risk of injury or death. That’s not a hypothetical edge case. It’s a foreseeable outcome of enforcement-first thinking applied to kids on bikes.
Worth noting: the MnDOT youth e-bike study that supposedly informed this legislation did not recommend a helmet mandate. It recommended distribution, education, and infrastructure. The amendment that got attached to the bill carrying that study contradicted the study’s own findings.
On E-Bike Speed Limits in Business Districts
The second amendment would have let municipalities set a 20-mph maximum for e-bikes in business districts, with no corresponding limit on other vehicles.
We support lower speeds in areas with lots of destinations and lots of people. That’s not a complicated position — it’s just how streets work better. But a speed restriction that applies to one class of vehicle while cars and trucks roll through at whatever the posted limit says isn’t a safety measure. It’s a confusion generator. A Class 2 e-bike already tops out at 20 mph with motor assist. An e-bike-specific speed limit in a mixed-traffic corridor creates an enforcement puzzle with no coherent answer.
If a corridor is dangerous, lower the speed limit for everyone using it and change the design to match.The e-moto problem isn’t Class 2 e-bikes doing 18 mph through a business district. It’s unlicensed, unregistered e-motos already operating outside the law. A patchwork speed restriction on the compliant vehicle doesn’t touch that.
On the DPS Education Position
The proposal to create a new state position at DPS for law enforcement e-bike education wasn’t something our state-level law enforcement partners asked for, and Minnesota’s dedicated active transportation budget is not flush enough to spend it on a staffing line that doesn’t move the needle on safety.
Those dollars should be going toward protected infrastructure — the physical conditions that make streets safer for everyone and that produce measurable, durable outcomes. A single DPS staffer is not the most effective path to helping patrol officers, sheriffs, and highway patrol tell a legal e-bike from an e-moto in the field. Clear statutory definitions — what HF 3785 would have created — do that job better and at no additional cost.
This Summer
The e-moto problem isn’t going away. HF 3785 would have given law enforcement clear authority, created a point-of-sale registration framework, and made the legal landscape readable to riders, retailers, parents, and police. Instead we’re heading into summer with the same gaps the bill was built to close — plus a new round of confusion about laws that don’t exist.
We’ll be back in 2027 with a cleaner bill. In the meantime, if you’re a city, police department, or parks agency trying to respond to e-moto behavior this summer: your existing authority covers more than you might think. The vehicles causing problems are motor vehicles operating outside the law, not legal e-bikes. Our e-moto resource page can help you understand what you already have.
The Offer Stands
BikeMN has an open invitation for any elected or appointed official to join us on an e-bike ride. City council, county commissioner, law enforcement leadership, state legislator — anyone who wants to understand what this technology actually is and what it isn’t. We’ll show you the difference between an e-bike and an e-moto firsthand. We’ll talk about what the research says, what the law says, and what would actually help.
We’ll bring the bikes. We’ll bring the helmets.
Get in touch at info@bikemn.org
Minnesota is a national leader in forward-thinking transportation policy — and that didn’t happen by chance. For over 17 years, BikeMN has been at the table, fight after fight, shaping a future where biking, walking, and rolling is safe, accessible, and valued. That work is funded by members like you. Join as a sustaining supporter today at bikemn.org/join — $5 or $10 a month helps ensure Minnesota stays ahead. We all move forward together.