Crazy speed bike with the app trick, what a danger in the center

Anyone who has walked through the historic center, but also along sidewalks in other parts of the city, cannot fail to have noticed the e-bikes whiz by like a motorcycle. The point where the exploits of these “electric cyclists” are particularly evident is in via Napoleona, where often the small displacement motorbikes find themselves head to head with these lightning bolts in the street. It will surprise you to know, however, that the law provides for a maximum speed of 25 kilometers per hour with an engine that delivers no more than 250 watts of power.

Local police have already raised several sanctions

With regard to these e-bikes, which we also checked yesterday around the center, often with the riders who deliver food at home, they also tell curious stories. One concerns an intervention in Camerlata by the carabinieri who saw a two-wheeler come to “fire” stopped immediately to ask for a “license and registration document”, only to discover that it was actually an electric bike. Another concerns an intervention by the local police right in Napoleona after seeing an e-bike proceed uphill at full speed without the cyclist pedaling. This should not be possible, given that the power of 250 watts must always and only come into action with the pedal assistance, and not by pressing a button or operating levers because this detail would involve – clearly – the installation of a modification not permitted by law.

The local police have already raised more sanctions in this regard (almost all of the riders), even reaching the seizure of electric vehicles: an action that is possible just when an alteration is discovered. However, one wonders how it is possible to see bicycles speeding by at such speeds, when the law requires 25 kilometers per hour with a limiter.

The network – as always – is full of answers to these questions. And the tutorials explain well, in a few minutes (and with the word “illegal”), how to intervene on the control unit to increase the power. But there is also the possibility, by connecting the control unit itself to a PC, to code the card in a different way, making it manageable also from apps that can be downloaded on mobile phones. In short, from mobile phones it would be possible to manage, in this way, the speed of an e-bike and the delivery of battery power which obviously would have the problem of discharging earlier.

The control unit can also be managed with an app

Yesterday we tried to approach some cyclists on e-bikes, asking for information about these devices. But no one has been able (or wanted) to show us how they work, assuming they were installed. While at the meeting point of the riders, along via Plinio, waiting to receive information on the deliveries to be made, the boys had no desire to talk.

However, the problem remains linked to these bicycles and also – in a completely mirror image – to electric scooters that can be altered in the same way. The situation is also known to the police, who daily find themselves having to deal (by intervening) with these missiles on two wheels, silent and increasingly protagonists of accidents along the city streets. Vehicles whizzing by a stone’s throw from people strolling downtown, families and children running around playing and not thinking of having to deal with a bike launched at full speed.