Best Electric Bike Philadelphia: 158 Neighborhoods

The best electric bike Philadelphia riders can buy is decided by eight words in the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code: "a vehicle weighing not more than 100 pounds." The state draws its e-bike line at what the machine weighs, and that is the first thing a Pennsylvania buyer should check.

Quick Answer. Flat-grid commute: the Eunorau META275 1.0 at $1,399. A bike that comes up the steps every night: the Eunorau META24, 61.7 lb. In the northwest, buy 750 watts: the Qiolor TIGER RL at $1,599. The split is measured: 77% of Philadelphia's blocks climb under 2%, while Manayunk's median block climbs at 5.14% and Lyceum Avenue at 13.96%.

Jump to the picks: the flat grid · the northwest climb · the rowhouse carry · cargo and the school run · bike and SEPTA · three wheels

In this guide

• Philadelphia is two cities, and the Fall Line divides them
• The 100-pound line, and the sixteen bikes it alone rules out
• What your body actually changes on a Philadelphia mile
• The eight things that decide it, in one table
• The rowhouse, the stairs and the charger
• Safety is two questions, and they have different answers
• 95.6 rain days, and the specification that answers them
• Streets, sidewalks and parks: where the bike may go
• Bike and SEPTA: what is allowed, line by line
• The best electric bike Philadelphia rides, area by area: the flat grid · the northwest climb · the rowhouse carry
• Cargo and the school run · Bike and SEPTA picks · Three wheels
• Every neighborhood, measured
• Central, Lower Northwest, Roxborough-Manayunk: where the City's other maps put you
• Philadelphia's 333.7 miles of bikeway, and the 9% separated from traffic
• Is there a Pennsylvania e-bike rebate?
• Where every figure comes from · The honest ledger
• Why buy it here · The bottom line
• Questions Philadelphians ask · Limitations · Sources

How we verified this guide

Author: Milad Ghobadibeygvand, Redtail eBikes — written and verified by Milad · verified September 16, 2026 · corrections to support@redtailebikes.com.

Every number below was measured from a named dataset, computed from one, or read from a manufacturer's own specification.

The ground, and the four checks on it

Every grade here starts from a 1-meter bare-earth laser survey of Philadelphia by the United States Geological Survey, flown for the 3D Elevation Program.

Two such surveys touch Philadelphia and neither covers the city alone. DE_DelawareValley_HD_2015 reaches 365 of 373 sample points inside the city limits; Eastwick, the Airport, Clearview and Paschall — the far southwest corner — are reached only by DE_DelawareValleyHD_5A_2015. So this page uses both, in a fixed order, and every measurement carries the name of the survey that produced it.

Over most of Eastwick neither survey answers, and the elevation service's best-available mosaic fills in: 109 of the published blocks, 95 of them in Eastwick, come from it and are labeled.

The USGS describes its 1-meter models as consistent within a single survey, with no guarantee of a match across two, which is why every figure here names its survey.

Four checks before any grade was published

Against the survey's own staged product. One whole 364 MB tile was read directly and compared with the elevation service at the same coordinates. The two paths share nothing but the underlying survey, so this closes projection, tile indexing and datum at once. Maximum disagreement over 45 points: 0.174 meters. Mean: 3 centimeters.

Against 353 geodetic control marks. The National Geodetic Survey publishes orthometric heights for survey marks measured by leveling and GPS — a different program from airborne laser entirely. Median disagreement: 8 centimeters.

Against 118,150 heights the City of Philadelphia surveyed itself. Philadelphia is unusual in publishing its own surveyed heights: 154,510 spot elevations of its own — 79,336 points surveyed by Sanborn in 2004 and 75,174 by ASC in 1996, in feet. A different contractor, a different instrument, a different decade. Compared against the 2015 laser survey with no correction applied, the median disagreement came out at +4.52 feet.

That offset is the City's own vertical datum, which the Philadelphia Water Department states in its published metadata: "All data compiled in Philadelphia Vertical Datum (i.e.: NAVD88 elevation minus 4.631 feet)". The laser survey lands within 1.4 inches of that offset, and the Sanborn 2004 points alone sit at +4.63 feet.

A constant offset cancels completely in a slope calculation. So what matters for a bike guide is not the 4.52 feet, it is the scatter around it: the median absolute deviation is 0.48 feet, and 78% of 118,150 independently surveyed points sit within a foot of it. That scatter measures agreement in shape, and shape is the only property a grade depends on.

And where the two laser surveys overlap, measured at the 9 points both cover, they differ by 1.0 inch on average and 5.1 inches at most.

39,790 street segments, and the ones held back

Philadelphia's own street file carries 41,271 center-line segments, each with a numbered road class. We read the segments in every class rather than guess what the numbers mean: class 1 is the expressways, and classes 2 to 5 are the arterial, collector and local streets.

Class 9 and 10 are expressway ramps. Class 14 is the literal line of the city boundary. Class 12 is a mixed bag holding 87 trails and 42 walkways, including the Schuylkill River Trail.

The rideable grid — classes 2 through 5 — is 39,790 segments, and 39,249 of them were graded. Each graded block was sampled every 8 meters and given two numbers: the grade end to end, and the steepest sustained 30 meters inside it. After the bridges, tunnels, stairs and held blocks below come out, 36,895 ordinary street blocks carry every grade statistic on this page.

Those two columns answer different questions, and a published hill figure has to be compared with the right one. The Manayunk Wall is reported at 17% and also at "averaging eight percent." Both are true. The first is a pitch and the second is a run.

Bridges, tunnels, stairs, and the blocks held back

A bare-earth model reports the ground underneath every structure, correctly and uselessly.

So each block was tested against OpenStreetMap's road-surface map by positive evidence of what it is — an overlapping way tagged as a bridge, a tunnel or a stepped way. Across all 40,662 graded segments, 1,717 are flagged as bridges, 382 as tunnels and 740 as stairs (a segment can carry more than one flag). Their measurements are kept and flagged; none is published as a street grade.

And 1,052 segments are held, 739 of them on the rideable grid. On a real hill the steepest 30 meters and the end-to-end grade are close — measured on the Manayunk Wall, the one Philadelphia climb with a published figure to check against, the ratio is 1.0 to 1.1.

On ordinary rideable blocks it holds at 1.3 in the 10–12% band and 1.4 in the 12–15% band, and then it breaks: 4.4 in the 15–20% band and 5.8 at 20–25%.

A block whose steepest 30 meters is several times its own end-to-end grade is telling you about a retaining wall, a rail cut, or the bank the center line runs beside. A block whose end-to-end grade is steeper than its own steepest 30 meters is telling you about a bad sample. Both are excluded from every statistic here.

Without that rule, two of the three steepest pitches in Philadelphia would be South Concourse Drive and the 1100 block of Ludlow Street, and neither climbs even 1% end to end.

The check that says the grades are right

The City of Philadelphia publishes its own list of steep streets: a StreetSlope layer of 96 segments on seven northwest streets: Manayunk Avenue, Green Lane, Shawmont Avenue, Summit Avenue, Shurs Lane, Lyceum Avenue and Levering Street. We built our grades knowing nothing about that file.

Matched segment by segment, the 81 of them that are ordinary street blocks sit at a median 4.89%, against a citywide median of 0.97% — five times the city's own middle — with Lyceum Avenue (13.96%) and Levering Street (13.65%), which together are the Manayunk Wall, at the top of the list. The other fifteen are bridges, stairs, a tunnel, or segments no longer in the street file.

The weather

Ten complete calendar years of hourly reanalysis at Philadelphia International, 2015 through 2024. This is a model constrained by observations, chosen because it gives a complete hourly series with no gaps — a station record with missing hours makes every "hours below freezing" count a floor of unknown size.

Every specification, at the manufacturer

Each pick's deciding figures come from its maker's own product page, read September 16, 2026, in every form that page serves.

Eight Eunorau machines — the META20, META24, META26, both META275s, the Defender and both FAT-AWDs — are fully specified on Eunorau's own pages, and those published figures are what put them inside the Pennsylvania definition here.

Philadelphia is two cities, and the Fall Line divides them

The AI search answer we measured calls Philadelphia "relatively flat." That is true of most of it and badly wrong about the rest, and the difference decides which bike you should buy.

The whole city fits in two numbers. The median Philadelphia block climbs at 0.97%. The median block in Manayunk climbs at 5.14% — more than five times steeper, in the same city, under the same municipal code.

Seventy-seven percent of rideable blocks run at under 2%. Seventy of the 158 neighborhoods have a median block under 1%, and another 63 sit between 1% and 2%. Twenty-five sit at 2% or above, and at least 15 of those are in the Lower and Upper Northwest planning districts, where the land breaks away toward the Schuylkill and the Wissahickon.

That corner is not a quirk, and the reason is older than the city. The US Geological Survey describes the Fall Line as the boundary between two physiographic provinces:

"The boundary between the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont Provinces is called the Fall Line because falls and rapids commonly form where streams cross the contact between the consolidated rocks of the Piedmont and the soft, semiconsolidated to unconsolidated sediments of the Coastal Plain." — USGS Ground Water Atlas of the United States, HA 730-L

The US Geological Survey places that contact "in a northeast-southwest line through central Philadelphia". Southeast of it the ground is soft river sediment and it is flat; northwest of it the ground is hard rock and it climbs. The block grades trace that boundary on their own, which is why a rider in Girard Estates and a rider in Roxborough need different bikes.

Hilliest and flattest, measured

Girard Estates has 335 graded blocks and not one of them reaches 6%. Manayunk has 92 that do.

The Manayunk Wall, measured rather than repeated

The Wall is known because a bicycle race climbs it, and the AI search answer we measured, which draws on race coverage, describes it as "17 percent" at its steepest, "averaging eight percent," rising "nearly 250 feet in a half-mile." Here it is as a commute. The climb runs up Levering Street and turns into Lyceum Avenue, and our measurements — made with no knowledge of those published figures — put it at:

Across these 6 blocks the climb gains 164.6 feet in 1,463 feet of road, 11.3% overall, with two of them near 14%. The published "17 percent" is the single steepest pitch; our steepest sustained 30 meters is 15.14%. One more Levering Street block is flagged where it crosses a tunnel and is left out.

What that means for a purchase is in the rider section below, and it is blunt: on the Wall, an unassisted rider at a comfortable effort holds 1.73 mph. Walking is faster.

The 100-pound line, and the sixteen bikes it alone rules out

In 2014 Pennsylvania wrote its e-bike law without Class 1, 2 and 3 tiers. It widened the definition of "pedalcycle" to take in electric assist, and it put a weight limit in the sentence.

The operative language, read at the General Assembly's own publisher on September 16, 2026, is two sentences:

"'Pedalcycle with electric assist.' A vehicle weighing not more than 100 pounds with two or three wheels more than 11 inches in diameter, manufactured or assembled with an electric motor system rated at not more than 750 watts and equipped with operable pedals and capable of a speed not more than 20 miles per hour on a level surface when powered by the motor source only." — 75 Pa.C.S. § 102

The same definition adds: "The term does not include a device specifically designed for use by persons with disabilities."

Five tests, and a bike either clears all five or it is not a pedalcycle in Pennsylvania at all. The statewide detail — insurance, DUI, helmets and the local rules across Pennsylvania's municipalities — is in our guide to Pennsylvania e-bike law. There is no Class 3 tier. A machine whose motor alone can take it past 20 mph on level ground is not a pedalcycle here; it falls under other § 102 definitions, such as the "motorized pedalcycle."

Three of those numbers are inclusive (weight, watts and speed all read "not more than"), and the watts are where it matters most. A bike rated at exactly 750 watts is inside the definition here; our Chicago guide shows how one word in another state's statute moves the same bike across its line.

§ 102 does not mention throttles. Its speed test is about what the machine is capable of on motor power alone, and the definition says nothing about how that power is summoned.

The speed limit the owner can change

Every pick on this page ships limited to 20 mph, and several makers let the owner change that. Eunorau's product pages describe the limit on the META275 1.0, META24, META20, Defender and G30-CARGO 2.0 as "Speed limited Unlockable", and Qiolor's TIGER pages say "The default maximum speed is set to 20 MPH, which can be adjusted according to user preferences."

§ 102 asks what a machine is capable of on motor power alone, and its text does not address a limit the owner can change.

One reading: a bike that ships at 20 mph is inside the definition. The other: a bike that can be set above 20 mph is not. In Pennsylvania, leave the limit where it ships. The same choice matters in the parks, where a "Motorized Bicycle" is defined by a motor speed above 20 mph and is barred from recreation paths and trails (§ 308(H)).

What it costs to get this wrong

We screened all 198 active bikes in our catalog against § 102 on September 16, 2026, using the published rated wattage, advertised top speed and published vehicle weight from each live listing.

Throughout this page, our Pennsylvania pool means the in-stock bikes inside § 102 on their published specifications, as shipped.

Why each one fails:

A bike can fail more than one test. The weight row counts only machines that pass every other test.

Sixteen machines on our shelf pass every other test in § 102 and fail on weight alone, fifteen of them trikes. On a Pennsylvania road they are not pedalcycles, whatever they are called elsewhere, and none of them is recommended here.

The AI answer we measured for this rule names no bike that fails it; its closest line is "some cargo e-bikes ... may get closer to the limit."

The one rule that has nothing to do with the bike

Nobody under 16 may operate a pedalcycle with electric assist in Pennsylvania. The section makes no exception for a bike's power or class.

"§ 3514. Operation of pedalcycles with electric assist. No person under 16 years of age shall operate a pedalcycle with electric assist." — 75 Pa.C.S. § 3514, added by Act 154 of 2014

The age rule is a hard floor, and it is the single most useful thing to know before buying a child a bike here.

We sell kids' e-bikes, and none is on this page, for that reason.

What your body actually changes on a Philadelphia mile

A 130 lb rider and a 250 lb rider on the same Manayunk block are 2.9 mph apart. On Girard Estates' blocks they are not apart at all.

So we built the arithmetic. Power at the wheel has to overcome gravity, rolling resistance and the air; the mass being lifted is the rider plus the bike; the bike's figure is always the manufacturer's published one; and every grade is one we measured on this city's own blocks. The rider's own contribution comes from published physiology, cited below with its limits stated in the same breath.

Weight, with the watts held constant

750 W rated, 62 lb bike, comfortable pedaling effort, no headwind. Capped at 20 mph because § 102 defines the category by a capability of not more than 20 mph on motor power alone.

On 77% of Philadelphia's blocks, what you weigh makes no difference whatsoever. Every rider from 130 to 250 pounds holds the same 20 mph motor cutoff on the flat grid and on the 90th-percentile block, because a 750-watt motor has power to spare at those gradients and the cutoff binds before the physics does.

Then the northwest arrives and the columns separate. On Manayunk's median block the spread is 2.9 mph. On the Wall it is 3.2 mph, and a 250 lb rider is doing 8.3 mph where a 130 lb rider does 11.5.

If you live in South Philadelphia, stop shopping for torque. If you live in Manayunk, buy 750 watts; only the carry-weight question outranks it.

Fitness, with the weight held constant

The rider's own power comes from published physiology. Our source is Chorley, Bott, Marwood and Lamb, European Journal of Applied Physiology 2020;120(11):2349–2359, doi:10.1007/s00421-020-04459-6, open access: critical power of 4.17 ± 0.60 W/kg in trained cyclists and 3.19 ± 0.35 W/kg in untrained ones.

Four limits come with those numbers.

1. Critical power is a maximal sustainable effort, not a commute. A rider who commutes at critical power arrives wrecked.
2. The 50% fraction is ours. Every pedaling figure on this page uses half of critical power, and nothing in the paper endorses that choice.
3. Even the "untrained" riders in that study played sport every week. A first-time buyer is probably below that group, so treat the pedaling figures as generous.
4. All twenty participants were male, mean age 39. Carrying their watts per kilogram over to women or to older riders is an extrapolation.

On Manayunk's median block, holding the rider at 170 lb and the bike at 62 lb, trained legs are worth 0.6 mph over untrained ones. Going from 130 lb to 250 lb costs 2.9 mph.

What you weigh matters about five times more than how fit you are — and neither of them matters at all on three-quarters of the city.

The bike's weight, which in this state is also the law

Everywhere else in the country a bike's weight is a carrying problem. In Pennsylvania it is simultaneously a carrying problem, a theft problem and the boundary of the legal category. So it is worth seeing what it actually costs you on the road.

170 lb rider, 750 W rated, comfortable pedaling effort.

Fifty-five pounds of bike costs you about 2 mph on Manayunk's median block and on the Wall alike. The cost is real but modest, and small beside what those same 55 pounds cost you on a staircase — which is the section after next.

And what the motor alone will do

Not everyone wants to pedal up the Wall, so the table below takes the rider out and leaves the motor.

Three things fall out of that table. A 750-watt motor is worth 2.8 mph over a 500-watt one on this climb. A heavier rider on a heavier bike at 750 watts arrives at exactly the speed a lighter rider gets from 500 — the extra mass eats the whole upgrade. And unassisted, at an effort you could hold, the Wall is climbed at walking pace, which is the entire argument for the motor in one number.

Height, which decides what you can buy at all

Power is a preference. Fit is a constraint, and it is the one spec most easily checked before you order.

Thirteen of the seventeen in-stock machines in our Pennsylvania pool carry a manufacturer-published rider height range, and they are the table below.

If you are under 5'3" or over 6'2", that table is your shortlist and the rest of this page is secondary. The META20, the G30-CARGO 2.0 and both Tigers reach lowest, at 5'1"; the Defender and the Kunlun reach highest, at 6'4". Both Tigers stop at 5'9", which rules them out for a taller rider however well they suit the ground.

Age: what the law says, and what it does not

Age changes a Philadelphia purchase through the law alone.

The law is absolute and it is the first thing to check. Nobody under 16 may operate a pedalcycle with electric assist in Pennsylvania (§ 3514).

Philadelphia adds a second age rule pointing the other way: under its own traffic code, children under twelve may ride a bicycle on the sidewalk outside a business district, and everyone twelve and over may not, except where the sidewalk is signed for shared use or park regulations open it to bikes. For a child that means a pedal bicycle, because § 3514 bars anyone under 16 from operating a pedalcycle with electric assist.

The makers publish a rider height range, which is the constraint a buyer can actually check against a person.

Watts per kilogram come from twenty men with a mean age of 39, so this page does not convert age into a speed.

What age genuinely changes is two mechanical questions, and both have machine answers:

• What you can hold up at a stop. Eighty-seven pounds of two-wheeler held upright at a light on Passyunk Avenue is a different proposition at 70 than at 30. Three wheels remove the question entirely, which is the real argument for the trike pick and has nothing to do with speed.
• What you can carry up a flight of stairs. The next section answers it.

The eight things that decide it, in one table

Everything above collapses into eight questions, built on the same method as our electric bike buying guide and our New York City guide. Answer them in order — the first one that gives you a hard constraint wins, because a constraint beats a preference every time.

And the two rows most guides put first, which belong last

Fitness. Worth 0.6 mph on Manayunk's median block, against 2.9 mph for rider weight. It is the weakest lever on this page.

Top speed. There is no decision here. Pennsylvania's definition caps the category at 20 mph on motor power alone, so every pick here ships limited to 20 mph, and in Pennsylvania that is where the limit should stay.

The rowhouse, the stairs and the charger

Philadelphia is a rowhouse city, measurably. Of its 763,527 housing units, 413,901 — 54.2% — are single-family attached homes, against 8.5% detached, in the US Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey (table B25024, margin ±9,472). More than half the city's homes are built wall-to-wall with a neighbor.

That is a storage constraint before it is anything else, and it is the reason the weight column on this page does more work than the motor column. A home with no side access puts the bike through the front door.

The real test is whether you will lift it twice a day in February for three years, and that decides whether the bike gets ridden.

The numbers that matter, from the makers themselves

No adult machine in our Pennsylvania pool weighs under 61.7 pounds.

No gangway, no shed: the bike comes inside

If you have a gangway, a shed, a basement hatch or a bike room, most of this page's picks work and you can choose on the other seven questions.

If you do not — and in a Philadelphia rowhouse block you very often do not — then the whole machine comes inside every night, and the published weight outranks every other row in this guide.

Three answers, in order of how hard the constraint is:

Under 65 pounds, carried whole. The META24 at 61.7 lb and the META20 at 63.4 lb. A two-handed lift up a front stoop is real work, and it is still one a person does twice a day without dreading it.

Folded, for a basement or a vestibule rather than a staircase. The META20 folds and the Addmotor Foldtan M-160 folds at 81.6 lb. A folded bike does not get lighter, but it fits through a doorway and tucks under a stair once it is inside.

And if it is three flights, take the battery out where the pack comes off — the META275 1.0, G30-CARGO 2.0, Foldtan M-160 and both Tigers say so on the maker's page. Ask for the weight without the battery before you count on a carry figure.

The charger question, which is the same question

A pack that comes off is also a pack that charges in an apartment with no outdoor outlet, and does not spend a sub-freezing January night outside. Both of those matter here, and the second one is measured in the weather section.

SEPTA does not permit charging on trains or on SEPTA property, in its own words, so a rail leg does not solve a charging problem.

Safety is two questions, and they have different answers

"Is this neighborhood safe to ride in" is two independent questions, and a guide that averages them into one score has answered neither. We measured both, separately, and then checked whether they move together.

They move together only loosely. Across 146 neighborhoods with enough population to support a rate, the rank correlation between bicycle-crash density and robbery rate is 0.396. Crescentville has the third highest robbery rate in the city and zero bicycle crashes in five years. Hawthorne ties for the second-highest crash density, 85.3 per square mile, with a robbery rate of 41.4 per 10,000, below the citywide median of 63.

So they get separate sections.

Being hit

From PennDOT's crash records for 2020 through 2024, filtered to crashes where at least one bicycle was involved: 1,123 crashes, 28 cyclists killed, 88 suspected serious injuries.

Read that table with the denominator in mind, because the raw count is partly a popularity contest. We found no published count of bicycle trips by Philadelphia neighborhood, so a crash count still measures how many people ride there as much as how dangerous it is.

The column that gets closest to exposure is crashes per mile of bikeway, and it reorders the table completely: Rittenhouse sits at 3.17 and Passyunk Square at 20.93 — a six-fold difference between two neighborhoods with almost the same raw count.

What that changes about a purchase is small but real: lights that are always on, a bell (which Philadelphia's own code requires to be audible at 100 feet), and hydraulic brakes that work in the wet, which the weather section says you will need for 95.6 days a year.

Being robbed, and losing the bike

From the Philadelphia Police Department's own incident file, three full calendar years, 2023 through 2025: 186,468 incidents in the categories that matter to someone on a bike. 179,049 of them carried coordinates and 7,419 did not; both are counted.

A rate per resident misleads wherever the daytime population dwarfs the residential one. Center City East has 1,250 residents and 110 robberies in three years; its 880 per 10,000 is arithmetic about a very small denominator, and the count of people actually on its streets on a weekday is not in the residential figure at all.

West Parkside's 622 residents and Crescentville's 799 put the same distortion under their rates. Read the raw counts beside the rates, and treat the larger residential neighborhoods — Franklinville at 6,788 people, Cobbs Creek at 34,879 — as the rows where a rate means what it looks like it means.

Bike theft, and the thing the data cannot tell you

The Philadelphia Police incident file cannot tell you how many bicycles are stolen in a neighborhood. Its text_general_code field has two theft values, "Thefts" (114,360 incidents in our three-year window) and "Theft from Vehicle" (33,609), and the file carries no property type at all.

So a "bike theft hotspot" map built from that dataset is a map of all theft.

The second route is Bike Index, a voluntary register where owners record a bike and report it if it is stolen. Within ten miles of Philadelphia it holds 1,367 reports, 1,352 of them with coordinates, running from 1998 to the present: 128 in 2022, 92 in 2023, 88 in 2024, 101 in 2025.

Bike Index is a different kind of number. It undercounts by however many owners never registered or never reported — unknown and unknowable. It is biased toward expensive bikes and toward owners who found the site, which is the opposite bias from a police file. It is a floor on reported thefts of registered bikes, and it is never a rate.

What the whole picture actually supports is a purchase rule rather than a map: the bike that gets stolen is the bike that stays outside. Which puts you back at question 1, and at a weight you can carry.

95.6 rain days, and the specification that answers them

Philadelphia's weather problem is rain.

Ten complete calendar years of ERA5 hourly reanalysis at the Philadelphia International Airport reference point. Reanalysis is a physical model constrained by observations; it was chosen because it gives an unbroken hourly record.

Put the two headline numbers side by side: 95.6 days a year with measurable rain, 16.8 with measurable snow. For every day a Philadelphia rider meets snow, they meet nearly six days of rain.

Wind is a smaller factor here than a northwest hill. The mean is 7.19 mph, the 90th-percentile hour is 12.4 mph, and the windiest month is March at a mean of 8.42 mph; our Chicago guide covers a city where wind does the work a hill does.

The rider tables above assume still air. Into a 12.4 mph headwind, a 130 lb rider's speed on Manayunk's median block drops from 19.9 to 15.1 mph, and on the flat grid from 20.0 to 18.9 mph.

What the rain actually asks of the bike

Full fenders. On 95.6 days a year the difference between a fender and no fender is a wet stripe up your back on the way to work. It is the least exciting line on a spec sheet and the one most likely to decide whether you ride on a gray Tuesday.

Hydraulic disc brakes. Philadelphia's own code requires a brake that can "make the braked wheel skid on a dry, level, clean pavement" — a dry-road test, which is a floor rather than a recommendation.

A battery that comes off. The freezing season runs from a median November 10 to a median March 30, 140 days in which a road may be salted. A pack that comes inside dries out, charges indoors, and does not spend a sub-freezing night on a stoop.

The cold, which is real but modest

About one hour in ten sits at or below freezing, concentrated between November and March. Lithium cells lose range in the cold and recover it when warm; the practical rule is to store and charge the pack indoors and to expect shorter range on a January morning than on a May one. At 1.54% of hours, cold at or below 20°F adds up to about 135 hours a year in Philadelphia.

And the heat

Just over one hour in a hundred reaches 90°F. That is not much, but a pack left in direct July sun on a black stoop will run hotter than the air, and heat ages cells. Park it in shade and do not charge a pack that is still hot from a ride.

Streets, sidewalks and parks: where the bike may go

Three layers of rules apply to a Philadelphia rider: the state Vehicle Code, the City's traffic code, and the Department of Parks and Recreation's own regulations for every park, park drive and trail in the city.

Roads and bike lanes

A pedalcycle with electric assist is a pedalcycle, with the same road rights. You may ride the shoulder, in the direction of traffic (§ 3505(b)). Below the prevailing speed, § 3505(c) sends you to the keep-right rule of § 3301 "unless it is unsafe to do so."

On a one-way roadway with two or more marked traffic lanes you "may ride as near the left-hand curb or edge of the roadway as practicable" (75 Pa.C.S. § 3505(d)).

Philadelphia's own code gives every rider "all the rights and ... all of the duties applicable to an operator" under the Vehicle Code.

Sidewalks, and the age rule that points the other way

The state rule sets duties and two limits. Philadelphia's starts from a ban.

Pennsylvania's § 3508 sets duties for a rider who is on a sidewalk: yield to pedestrians and give an audible signal before passing. It bars sidewalk riding in a business district unless traffic-control devices permit it, "nor when a usable pedalcycle-only lane has been provided adjacent to the sidewalk." Philadelphia goes further, and § 12-808 of its own code opens with a general ban:

"No person shall ride a bicycle upon a sidewalk, except as follows: (a) Children under the age of twelve may ride on the sidewalk, other than in a business district as defined in the Vehicle Code." — Philadelphia Code § 12-808

Its two other exceptions are sidewalks the Streets Department signs for shared use (§ 12-808(1)(b)) and paths the Parks regulations open to bikes (§ 12-808(3)).

The fine is $50 plus costs of prosecution, or $20 paid in response to a notice of violation. And note what that does to the safety question: if a street feels unsafe to ride on, an unsigned sidewalk is not a legal fallback in Philadelphia for anyone twelve or older. The answer is a different street, which is what the bikeway section is for.

The same chapter requires every bicycle to carry "a bell or other device capable of giving a signal audible for a distance of at least 100 feet" and a brake that can "make the braked wheel skid on a dry, level, clean pavement" (§ 12-809).

The parks, the drives and the trails — read this before you ride Kelly Drive

Philadelphia's Department of Parks and Recreation publishes its own regulations for every park, park drive and trail under its jurisdiction, in their August 2023 update. They carry four rules that change how you commute.

1. The trail speed limit is 7 mph. Every park trail and recreation path, for every bike; and on Department trails, for every user:

"It is prohibited to ride a Bicycle or E-Bicycle on a recreation path or trail at a speed exceeding seven miles per hour." — Parks and Recreation Regulations § 308(G); § 310(B) sets the same limit for all trail users

That includes the Schuylkill River Trail through Schuylkill Banks and the recreation paths along Kelly Drive and MLK Drive. On those paths the limit is 7 mph whatever the bike can do, and the throttle question below decides which bikes the regulations name at all.

2. The Kelly Drive roadway is closed to bikes at rush hour.

"It is prohibited to ride a Bicycle or E-Bicycle ... on the roadway of Kelly Drive Monday through Friday between the hours of 7:00 A.M. and 10:00 A.M., and the hours of 4:00 P.M. and 6:30 P.M." — § 308(D)(2)

Kelly Drive is the flat river route between East Falls and Center City — the obvious way down from the northwest. In the hours a commuter would use its roadway, a commuter may not.

3. The Lincoln Drive roadway is closed to bikes at all times, between Wissahickon Avenue and Kelly Drive (§ 308(D)(1)). Lincoln Drive is the other road out of Manayunk and Germantown toward the river.

4. The fine is a minimum of $300 per day, per violation (§ 501(B)).

Put rules 2 and 3 together and the northwest commute changes shape: at rush hour, a rider coming down from Manayunk or Roxborough is on the Kelly Drive recreation path at 7 mph, or on city streets that are not Kelly Drive or Lincoln Drive. The climb back up is the part of the commute that cannot be routed around, which makes a real argument for the 750-watt picks.

The throttle question, published both ways

The regulations genuinely leave one question open, and it touches almost every bike on this page.

Parks and Recreation defines its terms in § 308(A):

"‘E-Bicycle’ means a bicycle with working pedals that must be operated to engage the electric power and has a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour. ‘Motorized Bicycle’ includes ... a bicycle powered wholly or in part by electric power that has a maximum speed with motor power of greater than 20 miles per hour." — Parks and Recreation Regulations § 308(A)

Nine of our eleven picks have a throttle on the maker's page, eight of them in the maker's own words. So where does a 20 mph bike with a throttle sit?

Read strictly, it is not an "E-Bicycle": its pedals do not have to be operated to engage the power, because a throttle engages it without them. It is not a "Motorized Bicycle" either, because that definition needs a top speed above 20 mph. On that reading the regulations do not name it, and § 108 separately bars "electric personal transportation devices," a term the regulations do not define, from park trails.

Read broadly, the same section defines "Bicycle" as "any vehicle propelled in whole or in part by human power," and excludes only a vehicle "propelled solely by motorized power." A 20 mph bike with working pedals is propelled in part by human power, which puts it inside that definition whatever the throttle does.

Read functionally, a bike in pedal-assist is a bicycle whose pedals are engaging the power, and the only electric bike the regulations bar from park paths by name is the "Motorized Bicycle," defined by a motor speed above 20 mph (§ 308(H)).

We are not going to pretend that is settled. On a park trail or recreation path, the use most consistent with the E-Bicycle definition is pedal-assist with the throttle unused, at 7 mph or less. On the strict reading, how you ride does not change what the bike is, so if a park trail is part of a daily commute, ask the Department of Parks and Recreation before you rely on it.

On a city street the question does not arise, because Pennsylvania's own definition in § 102 says nothing about how the power is summoned.

Bike and SEPTA: what is allowed, line by line

SEPTA's policy is simpler than its reputation on the rail lines, and stricter on the buses. Here it is in the agency's own words, read on September 16, 2026:

"Always allowed: Folding personal vehicles when fully collapsed. Allowed with restrictions: Bicycles, scooters, electric personal vehicles (e-bikes, e-scooters, etc.) Not allowed: Gasoline-powered vehicles, mopeds and motorcycles." — SEPTA, Bicycles, Scooters & Personal Vehicles

And the line-by-line rules, which are where a commute is actually decided:

Two rules apply everywhere: turn the bike off before boarding, and charging on trains or on SEPTA property is not permitted.

What that means for a buyer:

If your commute is on the Broad Street Line, a full-size e-bike boards at any hour, up to two per car.

If it is the Market–Frankford Line at rush hour, a full-size bike does not board.

If it is a trolley on the Subway–Surface lines, only a folding bike boards at all. It is the strongest reason on this page to buy a folder.

If a bus is part of the trip, buy the folder. The front rack does not take an e-bike. SEPTA describes the devices its policy covers as "lightweight, low-speed"; if a cargo bike or a trike is part of a rail plan, confirm it with SEPTA first. The two SEPTA picks are below.

The best electric bike Philadelphia rides, area by area

Every machine below meets Pennsylvania's definition in § 102 on a published weight, was in stock on our store on September 16, 2026, and has its specifications confirmed at the maker's own page. Eleven models, three brands, six areas.

The flat grid

For: Center City, South Philadelphia, the river wards and the numbered-street grid — anywhere your neighborhood's median block is under 2%. That is 133 of the city's 158 neighborhoods.

On this ground's median block every rider from 130 to 250 lb reaches the 20 mph motor cutoff on a 500-watt bike, and the 90th-percentile block still gives 17 to 19 mph. Our national comparison of commuter e-bikes for city riding covers the wider field. What decides the purchase is price, rain and what you carry up the steps. Philadelphia's 100-pound line is one of eight state definitions set side by side on the best cities for electric bikes page.

A 27.5-inch commuter with a pannier and full fenders, stopped at a corner of a flat rowhouse street after rain.

A retro commuter frame on a leaf-covered rowhouse street in the fall.

The META24 as we list it, in Steel Blue: the color the button below adds.

No luxury rung here. Every in-stock bike in our Pennsylvania pool costs $2,699 or less, and nothing above $1,900 is a flat-grid commuter.

The northwest climb

A steep stone-house street in the northwest: the climb 750 watts are bought for.

For: Manayunk, Roxborough, Upper Roxborough, East Falls, Wissahickon, Andorra, Chestnut Hill and Germany Hill — the northwest neighborhoods among the 25 at a median block of 2% or more. The hard part is always the way home.

Here the numbers reverse. Rider weight is worth 2.9 mph on Manayunk's median block, and 750 watts is worth 2.8 mph over 500 on the Wall. Buy the torque; only the carry-weight question outranks it.

The TIGER RL as we list it, in white: the color the button below adds.

Just the TIGER RL here. For a taller northwest rider, the Foldtan M-160 is 750 W with a 5'2"–6'3" range, and for a heavy load the Graoopro is 750 W with a 450 lb payload.

The rowhouse carry

Carried up the stoop at the end of the day: the lift this area is chosen for.

For: anyone whose bike cannot stay outside — no gangway, no shed, a third-floor walk-up, or a block you would not leave it on. Question 1 in the matrix, which outranks every other row.

Here the only spec that matters is the maker's published weight. Everything else is a tiebreaker.

The META20 as we list it, in Alpine White: the color the buttons below add.

The Defender as we list it, in Army Green: the color the button below adds.

All three rowhouse picks are Eunorau because the three lightest in-stock machines in our Pennsylvania pool are Eunorau's: 61.7, 63.4 and 66.0 lb in its own specification table.

Cargo and the school run

A child seat on a long rear rack, on the school run.

For: groceries from the Italian Market, a child seat, a delivery load. Check rider plus cargo against the maker's payload ceiling. Our cargo e-bike collection lists what we ship, and our cargo e-bike buying guide sets them side by side.

The Garootan M-81 as we list it, in orange: the color the button below adds.

The Graoopro as we list it, in Neptune Blue: the color the button below adds.

The G30-CARGO 2.0 as we list it, in yellow: the color the button below adds.

Bike and SEPTA

Unfolded on the platform; folded, it boards at any hour.

For: any commute with a rail leg — and especially the Subway–Surface trolleys, which take a folding bike and nothing else. The whole shelf of folding e-bikes we ship is here, and our folding e-bike buying guide compares them.

The Foldtan M-160 as we list it, in Sky Blue: the color the button below adds.

Three wheels

For: a rider who does not want to hold a bike up at every light — which is a real question at 70, and has nothing to do with speed.

Just the Citytri here, the one trike in our Pennsylvania pool under $2,000; Limitations names the trikes held until their published weights agree.

Pennsylvania's § 102 expressly admits "two or three wheels," so a trike under the weight ceiling is a pedalcycle like any other. The full range is in our electric trikes collection.

The Citytri E-310 as we list it: three wheels, a rear basket and a folding frame.

Every neighborhood, measured

All 158 of Philadelphia's neighborhoods, in the City's own published set. The columns tell you which side of the Fall Line you are on and how the two safety questions come out where you live.

How to read it. Median is the middle grade of every rideable block in the neighborhood, end to end — under 1% is flat ground, 2% or more puts you in the steep group. ≥6% counts blocks at 6% or steeper.

Crashes is the five-year PennDOT count, and it measures how many people ride there as much as how dangerous it is. Robbery/10k is left blank where fewer than 500 people live, because a rate over a tiny population is noise.

Denominator. 158 neighborhoods, from the City of Philadelphia's own neighborhoods layer, retrieved September 16, 2026.

Their polygons total 142.71 square miles against the US Census Bureau's 2025 figure of 142.42 square miles of land and water for the city — within 0.20%, which is how we know the set covers the whole city with no gaps.

That comparison needed one correction that is easy to miss: map projections shrink areas slightly near their center line, by 0.08% here, which is 0.11 square miles and larger than eight of the 158 neighborhoods.

Median and ≥6% exclude any block carried on a bridge, passing through a tunnel, or mapped as stairs, and the 1,052 segments held as implausible. Robbery counts are Philadelphia Police Department incidents 2023–2025; bike crashes are PennDOT records 2020–2024.

Central, Lower Northwest, Roxborough-Manayunk: where the City's other maps put you

Philadelphia has no single map of its neighborhoods. At least four geographies are in daily use, and they disagree about where things are:

So if the name you use is not one of the 158, we mapped it onto the 158 from geometry: every other area was sampled every 100 meters and each point assigned to the published neighborhood containing it. 307 other names, and 268 of them span more than one of our rows. A name that spans several is shown with all of them and its share in each, because collapsing it to the largest would be an invention.

The table shows the 18 Planning Districts and 16 of the 49 safety areas. The full mapping of all 307 names, including the Registered Community Organizations, is in our dataset.

Philadelphia's 333.7 miles of bikeway, and the 9% separated from traffic

The AI answers we measured say Philadelphia has "over 200 miles of bike lanes," with no date and no source. The City's own 2024 bike network file says something more useful, once you read what each mile actually is.

City of Philadelphia, Bike Network 2024, measured by us segment by segment.

Two numbers matter more than the total. 53.7 miles are sharrows — a marking that tells drivers to expect bikes in a lane they share, which is not a bike lane in any physical sense. And 30.9 miles — 9.3% — are physically separated from traffic (the 3.6 miles of shared-use sidepath are counted apart) by a curb, posts or a raised surface.

That 9.3% is the network a nervous rider actually has, and it is the practical reason the safety section says what it says: most of Philadelphia's bikeway is paint, and paint does not stop a car.

Is there a Pennsylvania e-bike rebate?

Not today. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection runs an Alternative Fuel Vehicle Rebate program, and its own page states, as of September 16, 2026, that "The Alternative Fuel Vehicle Rebate Program is closed."

Its published rebate tiers name battery-electric cars and trucks, plug-in hybrids, "all other alternative fuel vehicles, and electric motorcycles", and none of them names a pedalcycle.

What does exist, and applies to every bike on this page, is the price. Six of our eleven picks are currently below their list price — the Garootan M-81 by $900 — and Shop Pay Installments is offered at our checkout.

The verified monthly figures, with their interest rate, are in Why buy it here.

Where every figure comes from

Every number on this page traces to one of these. The grades are ours, computed from public data; the law is the legislature's and the City's own text; the specifications are each maker's own.

All retrieved September 16, 2026.

The honest ledger

What each part of this page is right for, and who should read something else.

Why buy it here

Free shipping anywhere in the 48 contiguous states, and a US support desk. If a warranty claim comes up, we take it to the manufacturer for you: the warranty is the maker's, and the legwork is ours.

Spreading the cost is built into checkout. Shop Pay Installments is offered at checkout, through Affirm. Read from our own live storefront on September 16, 2026, the Eunorau META275 1.0 at $1,399 shows two sample plans:

Those are sample plans. Rates range from 0% to 36% APR, every plan is subject to an eligibility check, and the term you are offered is shown before you commit. The figures exclude tax and shipping.

Every price here was read from our store on September 16, 2026, and each Buy button opens a cart with that model and color in it.

Pennsylvania's definition decided this page before any bike did. Of the 198 bikes we sell, 11 are recommended here, each inside § 102 on its published specifications as shipped.

The bottom line

Philadelphia is two cities, and you only need to know which one you live in.

Below a 2% median block, in 133 of 158 neighborhoods, the flat-grid picks are enough.

The city's median block puts every rider at the 20 mph motor cutoff on a 500-watt bike, whatever they weigh, and the 90th-percentile block still gives 17 to 19 mph at an easy effort. Buy for the 95.6 rain days a year, for the steps, and for the price: the Eunorau META275 1.0 at $1,399, or the META24 at $1,699 if the bike comes inside.

In the northwest, the arithmetic flips. Manayunk's median block is 5.14%, the Wall is 13.96%, and 750 watts is worth 2.8 mph over 500 on the climb home on a 62 lb bike, 2.5 on the 87 lb TIGER RL. Buy the torque: the Qiolor TIGER RL at $1,599, or the Addmotor Foldtan M-160 at $1,599 if you are taller than 5'9".

And everywhere in the state, check two things before you pay: the vehicle weight with the battery in, and a speed limit set to 20 mph. Over 100 pounds, it is not a pedalcycle in Pennsylvania.

In the northwest, the answer changes to 750 watts.

Every pick, one click: META275 1.0 · TIGER JR · META24 · TIGER RL · META20 · Defender · Garootan M-81 · Graoopro · G30-CARGO 2.0 · Foldtan M-160 · Citytri E-310

Questions Philadelphians ask

Are electric bikes street legal in Pennsylvania?

Yes, if it clears all five tests in § 102. 75 Pa.C.S. § 102 admits a "pedalcycle with electric assist" that weighs not more than 100 pounds, has two or three wheels over 11 inches, a motor rated at not more than 750 watts, operable pedals, and a top speed of not more than 20 mph on motor power alone.

Clear all five and it is a pedalcycle in Pennsylvania. Miss one and it is not. The statewide detail is in our Pennsylvania e-bike law guide.

What is the weight limit for an e-bike in Pennsylvania?

100 pounds, and it is the first clause of the definition in § 102. Ask the seller for the vehicle weight with the battery installed, in writing.

How old do you have to be to ride an e-bike in Pennsylvania?

Sixteen. § 3514 says, in full, "No person under 16 years of age shall operate a pedalcycle with electric assist." The section names no exception for power or class.

Can you ride an e-bike on the sidewalk in Philadelphia?

Only on a sidewalk signed for shared use, or a park path open to bikes. Nobody under 16 may operate an e-bike in Pennsylvania (§ 3514), so the under-twelve exception in Philadelphia Code § 12-808 is for pedal bicycles.

Beyond that, § 12-808 bars riding a bicycle on a sidewalk except where the Streets Department posts shared-use signs or park regulations authorize it. The chapter says "bicycle"; Pennsylvania treats an e-bike inside § 102 as a pedalcycle, and we read the ban as covering it. The fine is $50 plus costs of prosecution, or $20 paid in response to a notice of violation.

Can I take an e-bike on SEPTA?

Yes, with rules by line. SEPTA allows e-bikes on the Broad Street Line at all times, on the Market–Frankford Line except weekdays 6–9 AM and 3–6 PM, and on the Subway–Surface trolleys only if the bike folds. A folded bike boards everywhere.

Turn it off before boarding, and do not charge it on SEPTA property. Bus front racks take only non-motorized bikes.

Is Philadelphia bike friendly?

For most of the city the ground is. 77% of rideable blocks climb at under 2%. The network is thinner than the headline figure suggests: of 333.7 miles of bikeway in the City's own file, 53.7 miles are sharrows and 30.9 miles — 9.3% — are physically separated from traffic.

How long is the Schuylkill River Trail, and can I ride an e-bike on it?

The City's own street file maps 12.4 miles of line, spurs included, under the name Schuylkill River Trail inside Philadelphia.

The Parks and Recreation regulations name the Schuylkill River recreation path (Schuylkill Banks) among park recreation paths (§ 308(H)). A park path designated for bicycle use is open to an "E-Bicycle" (§ 308(B)), at no more than 7 mph (§ 308(G)).

The same regulation defines that term as a bike whose pedals must be operated to engage the power, which leaves a throttle-equipped bike's status open — see both readings of the throttle question. Pedal-assist with the throttle unused, at 7 mph, is the use most consistent with the E-Bicycle definition; for certainty on a daily commute, ask the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Can I ride a bike on Kelly Drive?

On the recreation path, yes, at 7 mph. The roadway is closed to bikes on weekdays between 7 and 10 AM and between 4 and 6:30 PM (Parks and Recreation Regulations § 308(D)(2)). And Lincoln Drive's roadway is closed to bikes at all times between Wissahickon Avenue and Kelly Drive.

Which Philadelphia neighborhood is the hilliest?

Manayunk, on our measurement of every rideable block: a median block of 5.14%, a 90th-percentile block of 10.84%, and 92 blocks at 6% or steeper. Roxborough Park (4.56%) and Wissahickon (3.86%) follow. The flattest neighborhood with at least 100 graded blocks is the Navy Yard, at 0.14%.

How steep is the Manayunk Wall?

On our measurement from USGS 1-meter lidar, Lyceum Avenue's 200 block climbs at 13.96% end to end, with a steepest sustained 30 meters of 15.14%, and the 6 ordinary blocks up Levering Street and Lyceum Avenue climb 11.3% overall. Race coverage, as summarized by the AI answer we measured, gives 17% at the steepest point and 8% on average.

What is the best electric bike for Philadelphia hills?

A 750-watt one. On the Manayunk Wall, with the motor alone, a 170 lb rider on a 62 lb bike holds 8.61 mph at 750 W, where 500 W holds 5.84 — and at an easy pedaling effort with no motor at all, a rider holds 1.73 mph. Our northwest pick is the Qiolor TIGER RL at $1,599.

Can I carry an e-bike up the stairs of a rowhouse?

It depends entirely on the weight, so check the maker's figure. The lightest machine in our Pennsylvania pool — in stock and inside § 102 on its published specifications — is the Eunorau META24 at 61.7 lb; the META20 folds at 63.4 lb. Taking the battery off lightens it further, so weigh the frame with the pack out before counting on a figure.

How do I prevent bike theft in Philadelphia?

Bring the bike inside. The city's police incident file cannot say how many bikes are stolen in a neighborhood — its theft categories do not say what was taken — but the bike that is still there in the morning is the one that did not sleep outside, which is why weight is the first question in our matrix. Bike Index holds 1,367 stolen-bike reports within ten miles of Philadelphia; registering yours there is free.

Is there an e-bike rebate in Pennsylvania?

Not currently. The Pennsylvania DEP's Alternative Fuel Vehicle Rebate program states that it "is closed", and none of its published tiers names a pedalcycle.

Do I need fenders in Philadelphia?

We would buy them. Hourly reanalysis at Philadelphia International, 2015–2024, shows 95.6 days a year with at least a tenth of an inch of rain, against 16.8 days of measurable snow.

Can e-bike batteries handle a Philadelphia winter?

Mostly, if you store and charge them indoors. 10% of the year's hours are at or below freezing, but only 1.5% are at or below 20°F, the coldest band this page reports. The freezing season runs from a median November 10 to March 30.

What is the best electric bike for Philadelphia?

It depends on which side of the Fall Line you live on. On the flat grid, the Eunorau META275 1.0 at $1,399. In the northwest, a 750-watt bike such as the Qiolor TIGER RL at $1,599. If it has to come up the steps, the Eunorau META24 at 61.7 lb.

All three ship limited to 20 mph, with a published motor rating of 750 W or less and a published weight under 100 lb; keep the limit where it ships.

Limitations

1. The grades are from a 2015 survey. The USGS laser survey was flown between April and November 2015, and streets regraded since then are not reflected.
2. 109 of the 36,895 published blocks use a third elevation source, 95 of them in Eastwick, where neither 1-meter survey answers; those cells use the elevation service's best-available mosaic and are labeled in our data. The service answers an uncovered area with exact zeros rather than an error, and exact zero is treated as no data, never as ground. Grades are computed on a 4-meter grid built from the 1-meter surveys.
3. 1,052 segments are held back from every grade. A block whose steepest 30 meters is several times its own end-to-end grade, whose end-to-end grade is steeper than its own steepest 30 meters, or whose pitch exceeds 25% or end-to-end grade exceeds 20%, is excluded from every statistic here.
4. Crash counts have no exposure denominator. We found no published count of bicycle trips per neighborhood, so a crash count partly measures how many people ride there.
5. Per-resident crime rates distort where few people live. Center City East has 1,250 residents; its robbery rate is arithmetic about a small denominator.
6. Bike theft is not measured. The police file has no property type, and Bike Index is a voluntary register that undercounts by an unknown amount. Its figures are a floor, never a rate.
7. Four picks carry a weight from our own listing rather than the maker's specification table: the Garootan, the Graoopro, the G30-CARGO 2.0 and the Citytri. The Citytri's listing states its 86 lb includes the battery; the Garootan's 85 lb and the Graoopro's 72 lb listings do not say.
8. Four machines are held because their published figures disagree: the Addmotor Citytan M-315 (95, 96 and 112 lb across our listing and Addmotor's pages), the Addmotor Landtan (90 lb on our listing, 112 lb from Addmotor), the Eunorau ONE-TRIKE 2.0 (98 lb on our listing, 86 lb from Eunorau), and the Eunorau FLASH LITE 2.0, whose specification rows give maximum speeds of 20 and 28 mph. The Addmotor Soletan M-66X is counted with the weight failures, because our listing's 99 lb excludes the battery. None of the five is recommended here.
9. Rider height was not found in text on the maker's page for four of the seventeen machines in our Pennsylvania pool. The Garootan's 5'4"–5'9" window and the Citytri's two ranges are our listing's figures, which our listing attributes to Addmotor's pages.
10. The fitness figures come from twenty men, mean age 39, and "easy effort" is our editorial choice of 50% of their critical power. They illustrate the physics and do not predict your own speed.
11. The throttle question in the parks is unsettled, and so is whether a speed limit the owner can change keeps a bike inside § 102. We publish the readings and do not resolve them.
12. The weather is reanalysis, a model constrained by observations, rather than station readings.
13. Cobblestone and Belgian-block streets are not counted here. No public map of Philadelphia's sett streets that we found passed a check against Elfreth's Alley, a known sett street, so no figure is published.
14. Nine pick cards carry the product image from that model's listing on our store. The street scenes that open each area show the type of bike, not the exact model.

This page expires, and gets re-measured, if: Pennsylvania amends § 102 or § 3514; Philadelphia amends Chapter 12-800 or its Parks and Recreation regulations; the DEP reopens a rebate that covers pedalcycles; SEPTA changes its bike policy; or any pick's price, stock or published weight changes.

Sources

1. Pennsylvania General Assembly. 75 Pa.C.S. § 102, Definitions ("Pedalcycle with electric assist"). palegis.us. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
2. Pennsylvania General Assembly. 75 Pa.C.S. § 3514, Operation of pedalcycles with electric assist (Act 154 of 2014). palegis.us. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
3. Pennsylvania General Assembly. 75 Pa.C.S. § 3505, Riding on roadways and pedalcycle paths. palegis.us. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
4. Pennsylvania General Assembly. 75 Pa.C.S. § 3508, Pedalcycles on sidewalks and pedalcycle paths. palegis.us. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
5. City of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Code, Chapter 12-800, Bicycle Regulations and Penalties, §§ 12-801 to 12-811. American Legal Publishing. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
6. Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation. Regulations Governing Parks and Recreation Areas, August 2023, §§ 108, 308, 310, 501. phila.gov. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
7. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Bicycles, Scooters & Personal Vehicles. septa.org. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
8. US Geological Survey. 3D Elevation Program 1-meter DEM, projects DE_DelawareValley_HD_2015 and DE_DelawareValleyHD_5A_2015. elevation.nationalmap.gov. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
9. US Geological Survey. Ground Water Atlas of the United States, Segment 11, HA 730-L. pubs.usgs.gov. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
10. City of Philadelphia. Topo_Spot_Elevations_2004 and StreetSlope feature services. City ArcGIS. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
11. Philadelphia Water Department. Metadata, Philadelphia Buildings 2016 (Philadelphia Vertical Datum). Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access. pasda.psu.edu. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
12. City of Philadelphia. Street Centerline and Philadelphia Neighborhoods feature services. City ArcGIS. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
13. City of Philadelphia / PennDOT. collision_crash_2020_2024. City ArcGIS. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
14. Philadelphia Police Department. incidents_part1_part2. phl.carto.com. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
15. US Census Bureau. TIGERweb, 2020 Census Blocks and 2025 Gazetteer Files, Places. tigerweb.geo.census.gov. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
16. City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Bike Network 2024. City ArcGIS. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
17. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Alternative Fuel Vehicle Rebates. dep.pa.gov. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
18. Chorley A, Bott RP, Marwood S, Lamb KL. "Physiological and anthropometric determinants of critical power, W′, and the reconstitution of W′ in trained and untrained male cyclists." European Journal of Applied Physiology 2020;120(11):2349–2359. doi:10.1007/s00421-020-04459-6.
19. Copernicus ERA5 hourly reanalysis via Open-Meteo Historical Weather API, Philadelphia International Airport reference point, 2015–2024. open-meteo.com. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
20. Bike Index. Stolen bikes within 10 miles of Philadelphia, PA. bikeindex.org. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
21. OpenStreetMap contributors. Road-surface tags via the Overpass API. openstreetmap.org. Retrieved September 16, 2026.
22. Graham, J. B. "Ground-water problems in the Philadelphia area [Pennsylvania]." Economic Geology 1950;45(3):210. US Geological Survey Publications Warehouse record 70215334. usgs.gov. Retrieved September 16, 2026.

Image credit: the cover and the street scenes were generated with Nano Banana Pro on Playcut and composited in-house; each pick card shows the product image from that model's listing on our store.