You can now ride e-bikes on Alberta Parks cycling trails

KANANASKIS – Beep beep. On your left. E-bike coming through.

Alberta Parks is now allowing pedal-assist electric bikes – better known as e-bikes – on all designated pathways and trails where cycling is permitted in provincial parks, including the Canmore Nordic Centre, signalling a major shift in policy change.

“We’re happy to see our customers be able to use pedal-assist e-bikes out on the trails for better accessibility,” said Chris Fast, manager of Canmore’s Bicycle Café.

“It’s also only being limited to trails where cycling already exists, so it’s not like you’re going to be ripping up Ha Ling on an e-bike or anything like that and bumping hikers out of the way. For the average user, I don’t think they’re going to notice much change out there.”

The change follows a two-year pilot, from 2019 to 2021, that permitted pedal-assist e-bikes on a designated sub-set of trails in Kananaskis Country. The test period assessed safety concerns and collected feedback from 1,213 survey responses.

“Following the pilot’s conclusion and analysis of results, pedal-assist e-bikes are now permitted on all designated pathways and trails where cycling is permitted,” Alberta Parks announced on its website July 29.

“This includes provincial parks, provincial recreation areas and wildland provincial parks.”

Since the pilot ended, e-bikes have continued to be allowed on pilot pathways and trails.

Reports of incidents involving e-bikes were also captured by Kananaskis Emergency Services.

Alberta Forestry and Parks, which oversees Kananaskis Emergency Services, did not respond to queries from the Outlook asking about the number of public safety calls reported. Requests for additional comments went unanswered.

Analysis of results and visitor feedback found that most current e-bike use aligns with class 1 pedal-assist e-bikes, defined as non-throttled electric-powered bicycles where the electronic assist stops when pedalling ceases or the maximum speed of 32 km/h is reached.

Alberta Parks also noted “pedal-assist e-bikes are perceived as being very compatible in a park setting” and “allowing pedal-assist e-bikes in parks presents low risk to visitor safety and park features.”

While Fast supports the regulation change, he said he has not witnessed much in the way of enforcement.

“There’s been zero enforcement and they’ve been out on the trails for years,” he said.

“I would definitely like to see a little bit more education and enforcement as to which bikes are actually allowed out there on the trails. We’ve definitely heard a couple incidents of people interacting with throttled e-bikes, especially. It’s pretty easy to change the speed limits on a lot of the direct-to-consumer e-bikes. So, it’s pretty easy for people to skirt the regulations.”

Any e-bike that is operated with a throttle or power-on demand system, has more than 500 watts of maximum output, provides power at over 32 km/h or other electric-powered devices such as e-scooters and skateboards, are not considered pedal-assist, and therefore, not allowed under the regulation change.

“I think what’s going to be most effective about this change going forward is, in practice, there will be less of a grey area with the right e-bikes on trails. The wrong e-bikes can cause a lot of trouble, both in optics for the general public, as well as actual trail interactions,” said Fast.

Specifically, Fast suggested more enforcement is needed on the Legacy Trail, where he’s heard of multiple negative interactions related to e-bikes, including serious injuries.

“As far as I’ve been aware, those have almost all exclusively been throttle-operated e-bikes,” he said.

The regulation change means Alberta Parks will now also allow pedal-assist e-bikes on designated cycling trails at the Canmore Nordic Centre.

If it results in increased use of trails and e-bikes, in general, Fast suggested the Nordic Centre is well-equipped to handle that.

“I think it’s the exact type of place we should be seeing e-bikes allowed. It’s already a trail centre that has lots of dollars allocated for trail maintenance,” he said.

“On trails that have not previously allowed mountain bikes, I don’t think that’s necessarily a good place to have e-bikes, but at the moment, all those trails at the Nordic Centre, they’ve already got mountain bikes on them.”

The Canmore Nordic Centre and trail steward organization the Friends of Kananaskis Country, also already make use of e-bikes for trail maintenance to reach point A to B more efficiently.

Laura Quelch, executive director of the Canmore & Area Mountain Biking Association, said the association welcomes the change and Canmore already has many e-bike users on its local trail network. 

“There will be an adjustment period locally, but e-bikes have been allowed on many trail networks in other jurisdictions throughout Canada and around the globe for quite some time and with success,” she said in an email. 

Commuter style e-bikes have become increasingly popular in the Bow Valley, where visitor vehicle traffic can congest roadways and the cost-of-living for residents is high.

“We’ve seen it change a lot of folks’ lives. We’ve seen lots of people sell a vehicle or take a vehicle off the road and get an e-bike that they can carry themselves, their groceries or their kids on,” said Fast.

“We’ve seen a lot of uptake in sales on that style of e-bike over the past couple years.”

E-bikes more suited to mountain biking and backcountry trails are catching up in popularity, he noted.

“We’re still talking pedal-assist bikes and we have been seeing a lot of uptake in those. Typically, it’s people who still own a regular mountain bike and they want to get in some bigger days or go on some longer adventures.”

Quelch noted it will now be more important than ever for trail users to practice good etiquette as the probability of trail conflict increases and traditional trail network flow may need to be modified to avoid such conflict when e-bike riders can now climb at high speeds.

“[This includes] proper yielding and speed control and reminding all users to ride trails that are within their technical abilities,” she said. 

Alberta Parks reminds users that trails are shared by hikers, runners, cyclists, dog walkers and more. 

To practice good trail etiquette, it recommends cyclists yield to everyone and that dog walkers yield to hikers. It also recommends trail users step aside for a cyclist climbing a steep grade and for cyclists maintain physical distance from other trail users not in their party.

If trail conditions are poor or congested, reduce speed to avoid accidents and potential injuries.

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. The position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.