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Safah \u201cSean\u201d Shirzad, manager at Scooter Importer, wheels a Sur-Ron Ultra Bee to the lot at the store for a photo on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Alameda. Shirzad said he advises his customers that e-motos are not street legal, but he\u2019s not sure whether the information lands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lea Suzuki\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Eric Harr pulled his Toyota Tacoma up to a storage unit in Berkeley, his eyes raking the lot warily, a pocket knife hidden in his sock for self-defense. He told his teenage son Turner to wait in the truck.<\/p>\n
The Marin<\/a> dad had never made a transaction like this.<\/p>\n As the electric gate slid open, a lanky college student emerged, tugging a shiny two-wheeled vehicle. There it was: The 2025 Sur-Ron<\/a> Ultra Bee e-motorcycle. Turner had pined for the bike, a hard thing to find in their area as officials crack down on devices like it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n So-called \u201ce-motos\u201d like the Sur-Ron, sometimes marketed as and confused with e-bikes<\/a>, have become a flashpoint<\/a> on Bay Area streets and bike paths, where the off-road vehicles aren\u2019t allowed, yet are now common. But for many suburban teens like Turner, they\u2019ve also become a coveted means of transit and status symbol.<\/p>\n Sur-Ron\u2019s Ultra Bee, front to back, Light Bee, and Hyper Bee are seen at Scooter Importer on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Alameda. The e-motos are increasingly seen on Bay Area bike paths and streets, where they aren\u2019t legal to ride.<\/p>\n Lea Suzuki\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n So Harr had scoured Facebook Marketplace to find the student in Berkeley, who shipped them in from Southern California to meet demand from affluent Bay Area parents. Harr had to admit it looked beautiful, like a futuristic motorcycle. The frame had a glossy black sheen, with foot pegs instead of bike pedals, and a motor that could reach speeds of 50 miles per hour with the twist of a throttle\u00a0\u2014 far faster than the maximum speeds for street-legal e-bikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Francisco Chronicle Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Harr opened the Venmo payment app on his phone and transferred $4,700, plus a $100 tip, to the seller\u2019s account. Driving back home with his prize in the bed of the pickup, he felt buoyant. It was the Sunday before this past Christmas, and he\u2019d pulled off the \u201csofty\u00a0Marin\u201d person\u2019s version of a drug deal.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That\u2019s where the trouble began.<\/p>\n With the Sur-Ron, then-15-year-old Turner found new freedom. He gratified his parents by riding to school and arriving to first period on time. But he also barrelled through stop signs, popped wheelies on their quiet residential block and zoomed away when police officers tried to pull him over. Harr quickly realized not only that his son had been branded a teenage hellion, but that the e-moto had landed them in a culture war.<\/p>\n \u201cNeighbors said, \u2018Your son is terrorizing the neighborhood,\u2019\u201d Harr recalled. He sat his son down for a talking-to about safety and personal responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n Turner\u2019s behavior improved. But the battle over e-motos had just begun to heat up.<\/p>\n \u201cThis seems like a problem\u201d<\/p>\n Cyclists who regularly ride down trails like the Ohlone Greenway in El Cerrito or the Mill Valley-Sausalito path in Marin say the e-motos popped up about three years ago, standing out from the spandex crowd or the parents hauling kids on matronly cargo bikes. To those who embraced cycling for environmental health reasons, these new e-motos are, to a typical e-bike, what a CyberTruck is to a Prius.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThese things are like Frankensteins,\u201d said Warren Wells, policy and planning director for the Marin Bicycle Coalition. \u201cThey\u2019re not clearly an e-bike, they\u2019re clearly a bike, they\u2019re not clearly a car. They don\u2019t fit cleanly into the motor vehicle code.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Typically, their motors far exceed the legal limit of 750 watts for an electric bicycle, propelling riders to neck-snapping speeds. (Dealers pin the maximum velocity at 40 miles per hour, though teens who spoke with the Chronicle bragged they could hit 70 miles per hour on open road.) The sharp, slender tails jut out like meteor contrails, giving each machine the look and feel of a true motorcycle. Yet they generally lack the brake lights, mirrors, turn signals and other features that motorcycles need in order to comply with state law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Throttle-assisted e-bikes in Marin County in 2025. Some of these bikes occupy a gray area between legal e-bikes and faster e-motos, which aren\u2019t legal to ride on the street.<\/p>\n Stephen Lam\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re the ones blowing past stop signs and not looking to see if any cars are coming,\u201d said Roger Thilmony, who was riding his traditional bicycle to work last Wednesday on the Ohlone Greenway. On weekday mornings this tree-lined bike and pedestrian path showcases a panoply of micro transportation modes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAcoustic\u201d bicycles like Thilmony\u2019s wobble beside \u201cClass 1\u201d pedal assist e-bikes, whose motor only operates when the rider is pedaling. \u201cClass 2\u201d e-bikes whizz by just as fast without pedalling, spurred by throttles. Even faster \u201cClass 3\u201d pedal-assists, whose motors reach 28 miles per hour, have become more common on the path in recent years. Weaving around all these bikes are dog walkers, e-scooters and joggers all gingerly looking out for the next blisteringly fast middle- or high-school student on an e-moto.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely a lot of cities are grappling with these devices,\u201d said El Cerrito Mayor Pro Tem Rebecca Saltzman, whose constituents have expressed anxiety about kids and grownup adrenaline junkies speeding on the Greenway.<\/p>\n Wells, of the Marin Bicycle Coalition, remembers his first e-moto sighting. In late 2023, he was sitting at a San Anselmo cafe when a group of teens peeled into the parking lot. One had what looked to Wells like a dirt bike: thick tires, suspension, a frame fit for Batman.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI clocked the label on the side, \u2018Sur-Ron,\u2019\u201d Wells recalled. \u201cAnd I thought, \u2018Oh, this seems like a problem.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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