After the Sydney Harbour Bridge was swarmed by 40 or so ebikes and e-motorcycles on Wednesday, the Australian government said the country faced a “real emergency”.
“[Illegal ebikes] are a total menace on the road,” the health minister, Mark Butler, said on Friday.
“Kids have done stupid things on bikes ever since the penny-farthing [but] the injuries that are coming into our hospital emergency departments are absolutely devastating.
“We’ve got to make sure we stop these things coming into the country [and] police are given the powers to crack down, to take them away, to crush them, to destroy them.”
Ebikes have been hailed as a climate-friendly solution to city traffic congestion, transport emissions and even youth social media addiction, offering Australians a means to get more exercise and save money.
But they have come with a cost – and even taken lives.
The state of New South Wales recorded 226 injuries related to ebikes in 2024. In just the first seven months of 2025, that had already to surged to 233 injuries plus four deaths.
The rest of Australia has faced the same issue, with legal ebikes involved in 239 crashes in 2025 in Queensland, four of which were fatal, according to preliminary police data.
Ben Boucher, 16, and friends on ebikes at Manly beach. Photograph: Andrew Quilty/The Guardian
For teenagers such as Ben Boucher, 16, ebikes have become a source of independence. Boucher bought his in late 2025 with savings from a part-time job. Most of his grade has started riding to school, cutting commutes to just 10 minutes, he says.
“It’s just easier to get around,” the Manly student says. Suddenly everyone seems to have one: “[there’s] so much hype”, he says.
But he is also aware of the dangers. “I see these tiny kids riding them and I think that’s dangerous because they don’t understand road rules or anything,” Boucher says.
Ebike riders at Manly beach. Photograph: Andrew Quilty/The Guardian
Francisco Furman, owner of Manly Bikes, in Sydney’s north, says sales began to surge in 2022. But after yet another death in December, this time on a rental-share ebike, the normally busy Christmas period went quiet.
“We had a lot of cancellations, which is really affecting our business in a big way, we hold less stock,” he says.
‘Close the barn door’
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has said governments are “trying to close the barn door” on the ebike boom, with close to a million of these machines already on Sydney streets.
Industry experts attribute the boom partly to the federal government’s relaxation of import standards in 2021. Those standards were tightened again in late 2025, meaning road-legal ebikes will be required to have motors that only activate when the rider is pedalling and are restricted to speeds of 25km/h and power of 250 watts. NSW, which had permitted power as high as 500 watts, has cut that back to 250 watts.
But retailers, such as Tadana Maruta, owner of Pedl bikes in inner Sydney, doubt the power limits will have much effect.
“You put the drugs into the community and now people have tasted it, and now you want to take it out,” Maruta says. “It’s too late.”
He says ebikes can still be tuned to run at higher speeds, like cars, regardless of their engine’s wattage.
Schoolboys on ebikes at Manly beach. Photograph: Andrew Quilty/The Guardian
“All it takes is one clever kid, and there’s always one clever kid that will be able to do that,” he says.
Customers could also continue to buy ebikes that are illegal on public roads but permitted on private property: that go faster than 25km/h, and have high-powered throttles or no pedals at all.
Such products outsold the 25km/h road-safe versions, Maruta says. Retailers warn customers not to take them on streets but those warnings are widely ignored.
Illegal bikes and e-motorbikes joined the Harbour Bridge rideout, and accounted for more than half of the ebikes intercepted in a Melbourne police operation in August.
“There is a clear lack of understanding, or blatant disregard, for compliance,” the Victoria police assistant commissioner Glenn Weir said at the time.
Enforcement and education
Calls have also grown to crack down on “rideouts” like that on the Harbour Bridge, at a north Sydney golf course and through Melbourne’s Docklands district.
Group cycling events grew popular in Australian cities amid the Covid pandemic, often run for and by urban teenage boys and promoted on social media. Attendance swelled from dozens to hundreds.
Natalie Ward, the deputy leader of NSW’s opposition, has demanded “ebikie gangs” be barred from the streets.
Regular riders such as Brookvale couple Kieran and Elle sympathise with this view.
“They’re giving us a bad name,” says Kieran, travelling to dinner with his four- and one-year-olds strapped into the kids’ seats.
“We would never go over around 20 km/h, we just want to come down for a cruise on a Friday night.”
Tyler and his sons Ellis, 8, and Sage, 5, on their way home on an ebike after school at Manly Cove. Photograph: Andrew Quilty/The Guardian
Daz, who works with rideout organiser Bike Life Australia, says police had started surrounding gatherings to issue move-on orders and fines in bulk.
“There’s an energy when you ride in a pack like that, doing tricks with your friends,” says Daz, who declined to share his surname. “The boys need it, it helps them get out.”
Bike Life is working to coordinate more closely with police, Daz says.
Heavy-handed enforcement should be the last resort, according to Bicycle NSW, which is calling for teenagers, parents and retailers to be taught the laws. The advocacy organisation is trialling an education program in hundreds of schools with the aim of rolling it out across the state.
Max*, a 15-year-old Sydney student, recalls a class where he cracked one egg with a model helmet, then another without, and observed the difference.
“I was just like, ‘man, I don’t want that to be my head’,” says Max, who asked to remain anonymous.
He unlocked his DiroDi Gen 4 fat tyre bike as soon as he got it in January but says he does not ride at high speed out of concern for his safety.
He says that concern is not shared by some of his classmates or their parents.
“I’m just wondering, like, do these people’s parents know they’re giving their 14-year-old kid a bike that can go over 50 km/h?” he says.
* not his real name
