Reckless e-bikers zipping through Tualatin Hills trails have cut off pedestrians in near-misses, residents complain.
Teens on electric motorcycles have harassed younger children in Southeast Portland, Sellwood neighbors posted on Facebook.
In the Tigard-Tualatin School District, e-bikes and e-scooters have been banned from elementary and middle school campuses as of June 1.
And, in the city of Happy Valley, leaders in May imposed a “zero-tolerance policy” for unsafe e-biking, echoing similar concerns in Eugene and Washington County.
E-bikes are riding a wave of popularity in the Portland area — bringing with them a basket of problems. As a growing share of riders opt for electric bicycles over cars and traditional bicycles, local police agencies and hospitals are fielding an uptick in e-bike related complaints, traffic accidents and injuries.
The conversation about e-bike safety underscores the tension between Oregon’s vibrant cycling culture and the regulations meant to keep riders safe. It’s been legal to ride e-bikes on trails since last July, and they’ve been part of the street landscape for two decades. This weekend, Portland could be crowned the e-bike city to rule them all as it vies for the Guinness World Record for biggest e-bike ride.
But their increasing availability has heightened emotions in a way that will be familiar to any Gen X-er who ever tried to bomb down Portland’s hills on a skateboard. (Fifty years ago, a similar uproar around safety on wheels led to Portland’s two-decade skateboarding ban downtown.)
Proponents herald e-bikes as affordable, environmentally conscious alternatives to cars, while being faster and more accessible than traditional bikes. They’re popular choices to ride to work, or for leisure, and when carefully operated, they’re safe. Riding one is like having “the legs of a Tour de France pro helping you along,” said Hayes Kenny, manager of River City E-Bikes in Portland.
But e-bikes’ speed is exactly what can make nuisance behavior hard to stop and injuries more severe.
In May, a woman on Portland Community College’s Rock Creek campus reported being groped by a group of boys who passed her riding e-bikes. And in 2024, a Tualatin 15-year-old died after crashing an overpowered e-bike.
But on a warm summer afternoon, teens riding through Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood said the convenience of getting around, without using too much energy or bothering their parents for rides, makes the devices appealing. Plus, it’s fun to go fast.
“Having the thing to go fast is, like, so cool,” said 14-year-old Hank Mabe, who rode an electric scooter, “because you feel the wind coming on you, and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going faster than, like, on the bike.’” He wore a helmet, abiding by his parents’ rules, and said he got the scooter for his birthday.
‘That’s a hazard’
Where e-bikes go, reports of unsafe riding seem to follow.
Mark Pierce, who oversees safety at the Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District, said he’s seen a “huge uptick” in the number of e-bike related complaints levied at the park, typically regarding kids riding too fast or along non-biking trails.
In 2025, the parks district received 108 electric device-related complaints, according to records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Just two years earlier, it had gotten none.
The Eugene Police Department received so many complaints that it created a specialized e-bike and e-moto reporting page in June. That form received 98 submissions between its rollout and July 9, according to the police department.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office did the same in early July, adding an option for residents to submit e-bike and e-scooter complaints through its traffic reporting form. The new button is meant to streamline e-bike related traffic complaints, and ultimately to make roads safer, said spokesperson Cpl. David Huey.
“Our hope, with this, it’ll be more measurable,” Huey said.
Two complaints were submitted within the first week Washington County’s form was open, according to records obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. Both describe groups of teenagers riding recklessly and popping wheelies on e-bikes or e-motos; one says the teens were seen shooting fireworks.
In their complaints, residents are partially concerned with the safety of e-bike riders, but also with that of pedestrians.
For Mary Mikkelsen, of Oregon City, her worry remains with children riding on roads.
“I have seen young ones driving very fast amongst traffic,” she said. “So that’s a hazard for both them and the traffic. And they also often don’t follow the rules of car traffic, which makes it more dangerous for them and for the cars.”
Hillsboro resident Ed Braun, who frequently walks local trails, has seen young people on e-bikes pass him in his neighborhood, he said, often going “pretty fast.”
“If you come flying,” he said, pointing to a turn on the trail at the Tualatin Hills Nature Park, “you can’t see us, and then you’re already going 20 mph.”
“But, I mean, it’s like anything,” he added. “You have to learn to adjust and live with it.”
What’s an e-bike, anyway?
If you’re confused by what an e-bike even is, you’re not alone.
Like several other states, Oregon classifies e-bikes in three categories depending on their speed and motor abilities.
Class 1 bikes reach up to 20 mph and include only pedal-assist power, meaning the rider must pedal for the motor to kick in.
Class 2 bikes are also capped at 20 mph but include a throttle, so the bike can accelerate without pedaling.
Class 3 bikes, the fastest of the group, reach 28 mph and use only pedal-assist, not throttles.
All three are legal to ride in bike lanes. They’re also legal on state park trails, unless the park expressly bans them.
When a bike whizzes by, it can be hard to tell how fast it was moving or whether it had a throttle. That’s part of the reason some complaints pinned on e-bikes — speeding, nuisance behavior, accidents — might have actually been caused by unclassified electric motorcycles.
Most bikes that go faster than 28 mph are considered e-motos, a faster vehicle more akin to a dirt bike, though they’re often marketed and sold as e-bikes. For the most part, e-motos are not street legal and can only be operated on private property, or must be licensed and registered as motorcycles.
The Oregon Legislature outlined the three e-bike classes in a 2024 law nicknamed Trenton’s Law, after a Bend teenager who was hit by a van and killed while riding his e-bike. Trenton’s Law also imposed an age minimum of 16 to ride the devices.
This March, lawmakers voted to lower the age requirement to ride Class 1 e-bikes from 16 to 14; the change goes into effect Jan. 1. (Riders still need to be 16 to operate Class 2 and 3 bikes.)
Oregon isn’t the only state to take up e-bikes in its legislature. New Jersey this year passed one of the country’s strictest e-bike laws, which requires a driver’s license or special e-bike permit, registration and insurance.
At the same time, e-bikes make up a growing share of overall biking in Portland. The city’s annual bike count showed e-bikes represented nearly a quarter of all bikes in 2025 — more than double the number counted the year prior.
That can be partially attributed to the convenience of electric riding, said Cameron Bennett, who leads policy at the Oregon Micromobility Network. On an e-bike, hills can become easier to climb, long distances easier to conquer and, frankly, the devices are fun to ride, he said.
Plus, they’re more accessible and cheaper than cars, and produce no greenhouse gases. For families, e-bikes let teens get around town independently — which also lifts a parent’s burden of giving rides, Bennett added.
The effect is evident in the “e-bike smile,” he said.
“You just see everybody, regardless of who you are, how much you’ve ridden a bike, you just crack a big grin,” he said. “It’s a pretty amazing feeling to have that power under you.”
Serious consequences
The same year Trenton’s Law passed, Tigard High School sophomore Mikah Cavalcanti-Chun died after crashing into a tree on his e-bike.
He was 15, a year short of the legal age, and his e-bike was advertised as going up to 32 mph, faster than the legal limit. He was wearing a helmet, and it seemed like the bike was moving at the speed of traffic, Tualatin police wrote in a report after watching security camera footage.
Mikah was passionate about riding — he had built and sold a computer to afford his e-bike, police wrote in the report — and he was in the process of modifying the bike to make it faster.
Data shows e-bike accidents like his are becoming increasingly common, and experts say factors like weight and speed play significant roles in their severity.
At OHSU Hospital’s emergency department, for example, e-bike and e-scooter injuries more than tripled from 2021 to 2025. Injuries totaled 179 last year — or one every other day — according to hospital data.
“We unsurprisingly have seen injuries go up,” said Dr. Beech Burns, an emergency physician at OHSU’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, “because the more people use them, the more accidents are going to happen.”
Both electric and “acoustic” bikes — or, traditional bikes without electric power — carry inherent risks because they share roads with cars. But because e-bikes are heavier and faster, their injuries tend to be more severe. (The same principle goes for car crashes, for example — the faster the car is moving, the more serious the crash.)
On June 23, a 68-year-old e-biker died in Newberg after crashing with a truck. Two days later, a Beaverton 14-year-old was hit and killed while crossing the street in a crosswalk on an e-scooter.
Burns said he’s seen children as young as 10 injured while riding e-bikes, with the most typical wounds being broken bones, internal bleeding and, most severely, head injuries.
“They need to be treated like real vehicles,” Burns said, “because they cause real injuries.”
In 2019, Tony Betz was jogging his daily route along the Fanno Creek Trail on the border between Beaverton and Tigard when a person riding an electric scooter passed him on one side, and a dog on the other.
Before Betz knew what had happened, he felt a burning sensation on the back of his knees.
An extendable leash akin to a rope, Betz said, had caught him between the scooter and the animal — leaving him with rope burn even six years later.
Betz called and submitted reports to the Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District, and over time he didn’t see the man on the scooter again.
“I was pretty angry and hurt and wanted something to happen,” he said.
Where rubber meets the road
The Tualatin Hills parks district can ban e-bike and e-moto offenders for six months — but it hadn’t done so as of mid-June, said Pierce, the district’s safety manager.
For now, both Pierce and law enforcement are focused on educating children and their parents about safe riding practices and e-bike laws. That includes publishing online guidelines and erecting educational signs at the park.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office conducted a five-hour traffic enforcement campaign in late June meant to curb illegal or dangerous riding, particularly in Bethany and at PCC’s Rock Creek Campus, where the sexual assault was reported.
Deputies contacted 40 children and teens riding electric vehicles, the sheriff’s office said in a statement, and educated them on traffic laws and e-bike safety. In some cases, they handed out warnings or citations to e-motos traveling faster than the allowed 28 mph.
Some local school districts are reinforcing e-bike rules, too.
The Tigard-Tualatin School District banned e-bikes on its elementary and middle school campuses as of June 1. And the Hillsboro School District in March reminded families that e-bikes aren’t allowed on elementary school campuses, given their students are too young to legally ride them.
The most common safety recommendations — and most effective, experts say — are to wear a helmet and obey the rules of the road. (Parents, too, should lead by example and wear helmets, experts added.) Most also recommend riding slower around traffic and pedestrians.
“If they were on a regular bike, going at a reasonable speed, and keeping a safe distance from pedestrians,” Pierce said, “I don’t think we’d be seeing these complaints to the degree we are now.”
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