Drivers on the A50 near Marseille probably expected the usual mix of cars, trucks, and the odd motorcycle. What they got instead was a 16 year old on a mountain bike style frame, flying along the highway at car speeds and even overtaking highway police.
According to French media, the teenager’s heavily-modified electric bike reached around 90 kilometers per hour when officers first noticed him, with the onboard computer later revealing a top speed of 121 kilometers per hour, roughly 75 miles per hour.
He had no helmet. No driver’s license. And, as it turned out, not really a bicycle.
Local reports say highway officers were finishing a routine speeding stop near the Toulon bound lanes when an electric mountain bike slipped through traffic and passed the patrol motorcycles.
One officer followed and caught up only once his own speedometer read just over 90 kilometers per hour, about 56 miles per hour, which means the teen was moving with the flow of cars on a limited access road.
Once they waved him to the shoulder, the strange machine started to make more sense. The bike had no pedals at all, used a full electronic motorcycle style speedometer, and was powered by an electric motor of about 5,000 watts.
For comparison, a legal everyday e-bike in France is supposed to have a motor capped at 250 watts, with assistance that cuts off once the rider hits 25 kilometers per hour. Above that threshold the vehicle is treated as a moped, which normally means registration, insurance, a proper helmet, and at least basic licensing.
Police say the teenager first tried to claim his motor was only 250 watts and that his GPS had led him onto the highway by mistake. His luck held in one narrow way, since there was no radar reading to lock in a speeding charge. The rest was less forgiving.
He now faces proceedings for riding an unauthorized vehicle on a highway without the required protections, and officers seized the hacked bike on the spot.
For most people, e-bikes are a greener way to skip traffic jams and cut their fuel bill. Stories like this show the other side of the curve, where tuning culture and cheap high-power kits turn what looks like a bicycle into a small motorcycle that tries to blend into bike rules.
French authorities already warn that so-called debrided e-bikes whose assistance no longer cuts out at 25 kilometers per hour are not allowed on public roads, in part because insurance and safety standards no longer match the speed and mass of the vehicle.
At the end of the day, this incident is a snapshot of a wider tension in micromobility. Electric bikes can take cars off the road. Once they race with cars on the highway, though, they also bring car-level risks.
The original local report on the incident was published in La Provence.
