Great American Rail-Trail (2026): 55.5% Built

The country is building one trail from the Potomac to Puget Sound. More than half of it exists. This atlas covers what is built, what is missing, what it is surfaced with, and who holds the authority to tell you your e-bike is not welcome on it.

3,760 miles · 2,086 miles open · 13 jurisdictions · 159 trails · 81 gaps · 193 managers

Quick answer

No, the great american rail trail is not finished. The Great American Rail-Trail runs 3,760 miles between Washington, D.C. and Washington State, and 2,086 of them are built, which is 55.5% complete. The unbuilt half is concentrated in Wyoming and Montana. E-bikes are welcome on most of the finished route, but no single rule covers it.

Rails to Trails Conservancy counts 2,086.2 miles as existing trail. Wyoming is 3.9% built, and Wyoming with Montana holds 49% of every remaining gap mile. A Class 1 or Class 2 bike travels the widest: the four we would ride it on start at $599.

For an e-bike rider the decisive fact is that no single rule governs the route. The Conservancy owns no trail and sets no access policy, and 193 separate managers appear across the built mileage. A Class 1 or Class 2 bike travels the widest, because a Class 3 sits outside the legal definition or off the path by default in eight of the thirteen jurisdictions, covering 60% of the finished trail.

The route, measured

The 3,760-mile route between Washington, D.C. and Washington State, as Rails to Trails Conservancy recorded it in May 2026. Percentages are recomputed from the Conservancy's own mileage columns.

The steward sets no rule of its own about electric bikes, which is why the manager count above matters more to a rider than any single figure on this page.

What's on this page

• The honest audit: what actually exists
• Who decides whether your e-bike is welcome
• Where a Class 3 stands, in all thirteen jurisdictions
• The federal layer: two agencies
• The surface question
• Washington · Idaho · Montana · Wyoming · Nebraska · Iowa · Illinois · Indiana · Ohio · West Virginia · Pennsylvania · Maryland · Washington, D.C.
• The best ride available today: Pittsburgh to Washington
• What the terrain does, and where
• The season calendar
• Planning range around the gaps
• Our picks: what to ride
• Where riders get caught out
• Every built trail on the route
• What the country still has to build
• Frequently asked questions
• The honest ledger · The bottom line

The honest audit: what actually exists

Rails to Trails Conservancy published its updated Route Assessment in May 2026, and the document runs to 145 pages of jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction accounting. Its headline is that the preferred route is "more than 55% complete." Recomputing the figure from the two mileage columns in the Conservancy's own Table 1 gives 55.48%, so the published number holds.

The average conceals the shape of the thing. Completion is not spread thinly across thirteen jurisdictions. It is stacked at the eastern end and nearly absent in the middle.

The corridor runs from Washington, D.C. to Washington State through thirteen jurisdictions. Shading is the share of each one's own route mileage that exists as trail. The pale patch in the middle is Wyoming, which has built 20.1 of its 517.6 miles.

Wyoming carries 517.6 miles of the route and has built 20.1 of them. Put Wyoming and Montana together and two states hold 820.6 of the 1,673.8 gap miles, which is 49% of everything left to build, on 25.4% of the route's length. Two jurisdictions are finished, the District and Maryland, and between them they account for 208.3 miles.

Every bar is that jurisdiction's share of the route, to one scale. The solid blocks are the named trails that exist, each drawn to its own mileage; the hatched block is road. Iowa and Nebraska show the other problem: the trail is there, but it is in eighteen and nine pieces.

Why the route advances one county at a time

A cross-country trail is assembled from trails that already exist, and it advances at the speed of whichever county, city, tribe or state agency owns the next parcel. The Conservancy's role is to identify a viable line and help local partners close it. Reading the completion figure as a scorecard misses what the document is: an inventory of 150-plus separate trails and 81 named gaps, each with its own owner and its own timetable.

The reason the shape matters to a rider is practical. A gap is not a rough patch of trail. A gap is where the trail stops and you are on a road. The two states that have built the smallest share of their own mileage are also the two with the longest distances between towns.

Who decides whether your e-bike is welcome

There is no national answer, and the Conservancy says so itself. Its published position on e-bikes states that decisions about which classes belong on a trail "are best made by state and local decision-makers because conditions and uses of trails and other facilities vary."

That sentence hands the question to whoever manages the ground under your tires. Reading the manager field on every trail profile in the Route Assessment and counting the distinct bodies named gives the number that governs this route.

The federal agencies are the National Park Service, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Olympic National Park, Olympic National Forest, the Lolo National Forest's Superior Ranger District and the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest's Butte Ranger District. The tribal governments are the Coeur d'Alene Tribe and the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe. Each sets its own rules on its own ground.

We take the same question apart by land manager in e-bike trails near me, and state by state in California and Texas. The most-named managers are city parks departments and regional districts: Omaha Parks and Recreation appears on eight trail segments, Lincoln Parks and Recreation on seven, the City of Bozeman and King County Parks on six each. This is a route made of city greenways stitched to county trails stitched to state parks.

The word that does not appear in the route assessment

Across 145 pages and 51,574 words, the Conservancy's Route Assessment uses the word "e-bike" zero times. It uses "trail" 3,931 times, "bike" 48 times and "bicycle" 29 times in the same document, so the silence is deliberate rather than an artifact.

The report's route selection criterion is that the trail "provide for safe, non-motorized travel on a route that is entirely walkable and bikeable," and its glossary defines a non-motorized trail as one "that do[es] not allow travel using vehicles with motors." Read alone, that sounds decisive against you. The Conservancy's separate policy document says the opposite of the obvious inference:

We do not believe the definition of "motorized vehicles" should be so broadly construed as to automatically prohibit the use of bicycles with electric motors.

So the national steward supports e-bike access in principle, writes no rule, and defers to the local manager. The practical consequence for anyone planning a long ride is that the question has to be asked 193 times, and the answer that matters is always the one posted at the trailhead you are standing at.

Where a Class 3 stands, in all thirteen jurisdictions

Every jurisdiction on this route that regulates e-bike path access does it by class, and so do the federal and municipal orders read for this page. The class your bike falls into therefore decides more here than its motor or its battery. Three verdicts are worth keeping apart, because they fail in different ways.

There is no national rule barring Class 3 e-bikes from rail-trails. Thirteen jurisdictions write thirteen different answers, and 193 trail managers apply them.

A bike can be outside the definition, meaning the jurisdiction's law does not recognize it as an electric bicycle at all. It can be barred by default, meaning it is a legal e-bike but the statute keeps it off shared paths unless something specific permits it. Or it can be allowed by default, which never means unrestricted, because every one of these jurisdictions lets a land manager close a path anyway.

Three jurisdictions do not recognize a Class 3 at all, five keep it off shared paths by default, and five allow it subject to whoever manages the trail. The eight on the left of that split carry 60% of the finished route.

Counting the mileage behind those verdicts gives the number to plan around. A Class 3 is outside the definition or off the path by default in eight of the thirteen jurisdictions, and those eight carry 1,252.0 of the 2,086.2 built miles. That is 60% of the finished trail.

Three jurisdictions do not use the class system at all, and each writes its ceiling differently. They are not alone in legislating outside the three-class model: Massachusetts has no Class 3 either, South Carolina draws its line at 20 mph, Arizona's definition does not stop at 750 watts, and Maine treats a 750-watt machine as a moped.

The District defines a motorized bicycle as having "a motor incapable of propelling the device at a speed of more than 20 miles per hour on level ground."

Montana's definition requires an electric motor "capable of propelling the vehicle and a rider who weighs 170 pounds no faster than 20 miles an hour on a paved, level surface," and it contains no wattage cap anywhere. Pennsylvania caps motor-only speed at 20 mph, caps the whole bike at 100 pounds, and requires every rider of any e-bike to be at least 16.

West Virginia writes the path rule most plainly, and its wording is worth reading in full because several states copy the structure:

W. Va. Code § 17C-11-8(h)(2), in full: "A Class 3 electric bicycle may not be operated on a bicycle path, multiuse trail, or single-use trail unless it is within a highway or roadway: Provided, That the provisions of this subdivision are not applicable to a bicycle path, multiuse trail, or single-use trail if the municipality, local authority, or governing body of a state agency that has jurisdiction over the bicycle path, multiuse trail, or single-use trail expressly permits that operation."

Our 50-state e-bike law table carries every jurisdiction in one place, and we publish a full law page for seven of the thirteen on this route, each carrying the local ordinances the state statute leaves open: Maryland · Pennsylvania · Ohio · Indiana · Illinois · Iowa · Washington.

The federal layer: two agencies, two opposite rules

Six federal management units appear in the manager field along the built route, and they do not agree with each other about what your bike is, because they answer to two agencies that read the same machine differently. State law does not settle the question on federal ground, and the two agencies you will actually meet take opposite positions.

In a national park, the rule is permissive and the throttle is not

The Park Service regulation puts electric bicycles where bicycles already are, but only where the superintendent has said so:

36 CFR § 4.30(i)(1)-(2): "The use of an electric bicycle may be allowed on park roads, parking areas, and administrative roads and trails that are otherwise open to bicycles. The Superintendent will designate the areas open to electric bicycles, or specific classes of electric bicycles [...] The use of an electric bicycle is prohibited in locations not designated by the Superintendent under paragraph (i)(1) of this section."

Two further provisions decide how you ride once you are on. The regulation adopts state law into itself, so whatever the surrounding state says about classes applies inside the park boundary as well. And it restricts the throttle directly: "except where use of motor vehicles by the public is allowed, using the electric motor exclusively to move an electric bicycle for an extended period of time without pedaling is prohibited."

That last clause lands on the single largest federally managed stretch of the route, and there the superintendent has already answered it. The towpath runs 180.3 miles under the Park Service, the longest one-manager section anywhere east of Nebraska.

The park's 2026 compendium designates the towpath, Berma Road and the Capital Crescent Trail as open to e-bikes, with two conditions the general regulation leaves open: "(Pedaling required). The maximum speed on these routes within the park is 15 m.p.h."

Its wording of the motor rule is blunter than the national one, prohibiting "using the electric motor to move an e-bike without pedaling" with no qualifier about extended periods. So on 180.3 miles of towpath the throttle stays shut and 15 mph is the ceiling, whatever the bike can do. Every bike recommended below has a throttle; on the C&O you pedal and let the assist help.

In a national forest, your e-bike is a motor vehicle

The Forest Service works from a different definition entirely. Under its travel management rule a motor vehicle is:

36 CFR § 212.1, "motor vehicle": "Any vehicle which is self-propelled, other than: (1) A vehicle operated on rails; and (2) Any wheelchair or mobility device, including one that is battery-powered, that is designed solely for use by a mobility-impaired person for locomotion, and that is suitable for use in an indoor pedestrian area."

An e-bike is self-propelled and is not a mobility device, so on National Forest System land it falls inside that definition. The travel management rule, rather than the definition itself, sets what follows from it: each forest designates which routes are open to which classes of vehicle and publishes them on a Motor Vehicle Use Map.

A forest can designate a route for e-bike use specifically, so this is not a blanket exclusion, and it is not the question a state statute answers.

Five trails in this atlas carry a Forest Service manager: Idaho's NP Trail, Montana's Route of the Olympian, Montana's own NP Trail section, Montana's Milwaukee Road Rail-Trail at Thompson Park, and Washington's Olympic Discovery Trail, the largest of them at 75.1 route miles.

Check that forest's Motor Vehicle Use Map before you ride, because Idaho's and Montana's permissive state statutes do not reach Forest Service ground, and Washington's more restrictive one is compounded by it rather than relaxed.

And on tribal land, neither applies

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe co-manages the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes and the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe co-manages part of the Olympic Discovery Trail. Sovereign governments set their own rules on their own ground, and a state statute does not speak for them. Both trails are open and popular; the point is that the permission comes from the tribe rather than from Idaho or Washington.

The word that decides it: "less than" against "or less"

Six of the thirteen jurisdictions define an electric bicycle by a motor of less than 750 watts: West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Wyoming and Idaho. Five write 750 watts or less: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Nebraska and Washington. Montana sets no wattage figure at all, and the District defines by speed instead.

A motor rated at exactly 750 watts, which is the most common rating on the US market, therefore sits outside the definition in those six. They carry 769.5 of the route's 2,086.2 built miles, which is 36.9% of the finished trail.

Read the nominal rating rather than the peak, and if you are buying one bike for the whole route, buying under 750 watts rather than at it removes the question entirely.

The surface question

The Route Assessment records a surface type for every trail on the route, and the totals decide what tire you want under you. Classifying each trail by whether its stated surface names any paved material, any unpaved material, or both, and weighting by mileage:

Maryland's 200.8 miles are almost entirely unpaved, because 180.3 of them are the C&O towpath. Indiana's are almost entirely paved. This is the chart that should decide your tire.

Only 36.7% of the built route is asphalt or concrete end to end. The remaining 63.3% has crushed stone, dirt, gravel, sand or ballast somewhere in it. The single longest built segment on the whole route, Washington's 247.6-mile Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail, is recorded as ballast, crushed stone and sand.

That distribution is why a 700c commuter tire is the wrong instinct here and why the bikes further down this page carry volume. It also explains a mismatch riders report between the trail's reputation and the riding: a rail-trail is graded gently, which says nothing about what it is surfaced with.

We measured what the wider tire costs and returns in fat tire against regular tire. The short version is that volume buys real comfort on stone at a modest price in rolling resistance.

The route is a chain of short trails

Ninety-four of the 159 built trails are under five miles. The route is a chain, and every junction is a place where the manager, and so the rule, can change.

The other structural fact is fragmentation. The median carded trail on the route runs 3.6 miles, and 94 of the 159 built trails are under five miles long. At the other end, the ten longest trails carry 1,169.8 miles between them, which is 56.1% of all built mileage.

So the experience splits in two. On a handful of long corridors you ride all day without a decision. Everywhere else you are linking short municipal greenways, and each junction is a place where the manager, and therefore the rule, changes.

Washington: 392.4 miles built, and the route's longest single trail

Washington: 392.4 of its 520.5 miles built, the most of any state on the route.

Washington carries more built mileage than any other jurisdiction on the route and is 75.4% complete, with 128.1 gap miles spread across ten gaps. It is also where the route feels least like a city greenway and most like a crossing.

Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail

At 247.6 miles along the route this is the longest built segment anywhere on the Great American Rail-Trail, and it is managed jointly by Washington State Parks and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

Its recorded surface is ballast, crushed stone and sand, the honest description of a converted railbed that has not been surfaced for bicycles. Ride it on volume tires at moderate pressure and treat the mileage between resupply points as the real constraint.

Olympic Discovery Trail

Seventy-five miles along the route, and the most heavily co-managed trail in the entire assessment with twelve separate managers named, among them the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, Olympic National Park, Olympic National Forest, Clallam County and the cities of Port Angeles, Port Townsend and Sequim. Its surface mixes asphalt, crushed stone and dirt. A single trail crossing tribal, federal, county and municipal ground is the clearest illustration on the route of why one permission does not carry.

Burke-Gilman Trail

Fifteen miles of asphalt through Seattle, managed by King County Parks and Seattle Parks and Recreation, and the closest thing the western terminus has to a commuter artery. Seattle has already exercised Washington's opt-in here. Class 1 and Class 2 are allowed on Parks Department multi-use trails including the Burke-Gilman at a 15 mph cap, and Class 3 is barred from every park trail. Our Washington law page carries the city table.

Idaho: 88.4% built, on 90.7 miles

Idaho: 80.2 of 90.7 miles built, and one gap left.

Idaho has the shortest run of any state on the route except West Virginia, and has built nearly all of it. One gap of 10.5 miles remains.

Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes

Seventy-one paved miles, co-managed by the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation and Old Mission State Park. Asphalt for its whole length makes it the longest continuously paved stretch on the western half of the route. The tribal co-management is the operative detail for an e-bike rider: sovereign ground carries its own rules, and the state statute does not speak for it.

NP Trail

Just over nine miles in Idaho, surfaced in concrete, dirt and gravel, and managed by the U.S. Forest Service through the Lolo National Forest's Superior Ranger District. Forest Service ground is the place on this route where e-bike rules diverge most sharply from state law, because the agency classifies e-bikes as motor vehicles for travel-management purposes regardless of what Idaho says.

Montana: 25.9% built, and no Class 3 at all

Montana: 113.0 of 436.1 miles built, and no Class 3 in state law.

Montana holds 436.1 route miles and has built 113.0 of them across 25 separate carded trails, the second-largest concentration of unbuilt mileage on the route.

Montana's definition is unusual in two directions at once. It sets no wattage limit whatsoever, which is more permissive than the 750-watt ceiling most states write. And it caps assisted speed at 20 mph for a 170-pound rider on a paved level surface, which is stricter than the three-class system, because a 28 mph pedal-assist bike is not an electrically assisted bicycle in Montana at any wattage.

Route of the Olympian

Twenty-three miles of gravel managed by the Forest Service's Superior Ranger District, following the old Milwaukee Road grade. Gravel over that distance with no resupply is the defining planning problem of the Montana section.

Old Yellowstone Trail

Just under eleven miles of crushed stone and dirt under Powell County. Short county-managed segments like this one are how Montana's built mileage accumulates, and they sit between long stretches where the route is currently road.

Silver Bow Creek Greenway

Ten miles of asphalt managed by its own service district near Butte. Montana's few paved miles cluster around the towns, which is where the 25 carded trails concentrate.

Wyoming: 20.1 miles built of 517.6

Wyoming: 20.1 of 517.6 miles built, the emptiest section of the route.

Wyoming is the emptiest section of the Great American Rail-Trail by a wide margin. It carries the third-largest total mileage of any state on the route, behind Nebraska and Washington, and has built 3.9% of it, which leaves 497.5 gap miles, 29.7% of everything the project has left to do anywhere.

The seven carded trails in Wyoming are all short town paths. The longest is the Casper Rail Trail at 9.4 concrete miles under the Casper Parks Department, followed by the Douglas Trail System at 3.3 miles and Al's Way at 2.1 miles in Glenrock. Nothing in Wyoming yet connects to anything else on the route.

Wyoming's e-bike statute is among the lightest in the country. It writes no age floor, no helmet requirement and no Class 3 path restriction, and it exempts e-bikes from driver licensing, registration, titling and financial responsibility.

What it does do is hand local authorities and state agencies explicit power to regulate any class on any trail, including natural-surface non-motorized trails. In a state where the route is mostly road, the state will rarely be your constraint and the land manager always might be.

Nebraska: the Cowboy Trail carries most of a state

Nebraska: 312.0 of 601.2 miles built, most of it one 220-mile trail.

Nebraska holds the largest total mileage of any jurisdiction on the route at 601.2 miles and has built 312.0 of them, just past halfway.

Cowboy Recreation and Nature Trail

At 220.3 miles this is the second-longest built segment on the entire route and it is managed by a single body, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Its surface is concrete and crushed stone. One manager across that distance is rare on this route and makes the Cowboy Trail the most administratively straightforward long ride between the Missouri River and the Rockies.

MP Trail East and the Lincoln greenways

Twenty and a bit miles of crushed stone under the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District, part of a dense cluster of trails around Lincoln and Omaha. Nebraska's natural resources districts are an unusual layer of trail management, and they appear repeatedly in the assessment: the Papio-Missouri River district alone is named on eight.

Nebraska defines the three classes in statute but writes no age rule and no helmet rule for any of them, which makes it one of the lightest-touch three-class states on the route.

Iowa: 18 gaps, the most of any state

Iowa: 256.5 of 459.7 miles built, broken into the most gaps of any state.

Iowa is 55.8% built and holds the most fragmented section of the route, with 18 separate named gaps across 459.7 miles.

Cedar Valley Nature Trail

Sixty-eight miles of asphalt and the longest built trail in Iowa, co-managed by the Black Hawk County Conservation Board, Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation, the cities of Ely and Hiawatha and several more. Iowa's county conservation boards are the backbone of trail management here and they appear on most of the state's 26 carded segments.

Heart of Iowa Nature Trail

Twenty-six miles of concrete, crushed stone, dirt and grass under the Marshall and Story county conservation boards. The mixed surface is typical of the state's rural segments and rewards a wider tire than the paved Cedar Valley run suggests.

High Trestle Trail

Fifteen miles, and the trail that appears on the Route Assessment's own cover. Iowa's speed cap is the detail to carry: a Class 3 is welcome on the state's paths, but it must hold to the posted limit, or to 20 mph where nothing is posted, which makes the practical difference between a Class 3 and a Class 1 close to nothing here.

Illinois: 86.8% built, on canal towpaths

Illinois: 165.4 of 190.5 miles built, mostly on two canal corridors.

Illinois has 25.1 gap miles left across four gaps, putting it behind Pennsylvania and Idaho as the third most complete state after the finished pair.

Illinois and Michigan Canal State Trail

Sixty-one miles under the Forest Preserve District of Will County and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, surfaced in asphalt, crushed stone, grass and gravel. Grass in a published surface description is worth taking literally when you are choosing tires.

Hennepin Canal Parkway

Just under sixty miles of asphalt and crushed stone managed solely by the Illinois DNR. Together with the I&M these two canal corridors carry 120.5 of the state's 165.4 built miles.

Illinois bans every class of e-bike from sidewalks statewide, requires a speedometer on a Class 3, and requires a label stating class, top assisted speed and wattage. An enacted amendment adds a minimum age of 15 for Class 1 and Class 2 riders from 1 January 2027.

Indiana: two long greenways and a Class 3 path bar

Indiana: 128.3 of 217.6 miles built, most of it two long greenways.

Indiana is 59.0% built with 89.3 gap miles across nine gaps.

Cardinal Greenway

Sixty-one and a half miles of asphalt managed by a single non-profit, Cardinal Greenways, which makes it the longest built trail in Indiana and one of the easiest on the route to get a straight answer from about access.

Nickel Plate Trail

Thirty-three and a half asphalt miles under Nickel Plate Trail Inc. Indiana's built mileage is unusually concentrated: these two trails alone carry 95.2 of the state's 128.3 built miles.

Indiana sets its Class 3 operating age at 15 rather than the more common 16, requires helmets for Class 3 riders under 18, and lets the Department of Natural Resources set separate e-bike rules on state properties.

Ohio: the most co-managed miles on the route

Ohio: 242.7 of 336.6 miles built, across 24 separately managed trails.

Ohio is 72.1% built and its 242.7 built miles are spread across 24 carded trails, most of them components of the Ohio to Erie Trail.

Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail

Thirty-seven point seven miles surfaced in asphalt, boardwalk and crushed stone, and co-managed by Canalway Partners, the City of Akron, Cleveland Metroparks, Cuyahoga Valley National Park and others. The national park section is the one to check before you ride it, because Park Service e-bike rules are set park by park under a superintendent's authority.

Prairie Grass Trail and Holmes County Trail

Twenty-eight and twenty-seven asphalt miles respectively, each managed by a county park district alongside a friends' organization. The Ohio to Erie Trail is a brand laid over a couple of dozen separately owned trails, which is why the Route Assessment lists its components individually.

Ohio also closes natural-surface trails to every class by default, not only to Class 3: a mountain bike or hiking trail is off the table for any e-bike until the land manager opens it. Indiana and Maryland write comparable natural-surface exceptions. On a route where 63.3% of the built mileage is not fully paved, that default is worth knowing before you plan around it.

Ohio is the strictest state on the route in one specific way. Every operator and passenger of a Class 3 must wear a helmet at any age, and path violations along with the Class 3 age and helmet rules are criminal minor misdemeanours that escalate with prior traffic offences.

West Virginia: 8.7 miles, and the clearest path rule

West Virginia: 4.6 of 8.7 miles built, the shortest state share on the route.

West Virginia's share of the route is the shortest of any state, 8.7 miles: a 4.6-mile built segment and a 4.1-mile gap, all of it in the northern panhandle. Only the District, at 7.5, is shorter.

Panhandle Trail

The state's entire built contribution: 4.6 miles of asphalt and crushed stone, managed by the Collier Friends of the Panhandle Trail and the Montour Trail Council. The same trail continues into Pennsylvania for a further 16 miles under the same organizations.

West Virginia's statute is worth knowing beyond its short mileage because it is drafted more explicitly than most. It writes an e-bike DUI clause covering all three classes, it provides that modifying a bike past the statutory limits means it is no longer an electric bicycle, and it states plainly that electric bicycles "will not be given special access beyond what traditional or non-electric bicycles are allowed."

Pennsylvania: 94.3% built, and no classes at all

Pennsylvania: 162.7 of 172.5 miles built, the highest completion of any state.

Pennsylvania has 9.8 gap miles left in a single gap and carries the route's most famous corridor.

Great Allegheny Passage

One hundred and twenty-four point seven miles in Pennsylvania, asphalt and crushed stone, co-managed by nine bodies including Allegheny County, the City of Pittsburgh, Friends of the Riverfront, the Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy, Ohiopyle State Park and the Regional Trail Corporation. Joined to the C&O Canal at Cumberland it forms a continuous 325-mile car-free run to Washington, D.C., which is the single best long ride on the Great American Rail-Trail today.

Montour Trail and Panhandle Trail

Eighteen and sixteen miles, asphalt and crushed stone, largely under the Montour Trail Council. These are the connectors that take the route west out of Pittsburgh toward the West Virginia line.

Pennsylvania's framework is the one most likely to catch a visiting rider out, and it has no class system. A pedalcycle with electric assist must have a motor system of 750 watts or less, must not exceed 20 mph on motor power alone, and the entire bike must weigh 100 pounds or less.

Every rider of every e-bike must be at least 16, and a 28 mph pedal-assist bike is not an e-bike in Pennsylvania in any circumstance.

Maryland: finished, and almost all of it a towpath

Maryland: 200.8 miles built and no gap at all.

Maryland is one of two jurisdictions at 100%, with 200.8 built miles and no gaps.

C&O Canal National Historical Park

One hundred and eighty miles of crushed stone, dirt and gravel under the National Park Service, and the largest single-manager stretch of the route east of Nebraska. It is also the clearest case on the whole trail where the surface sets the bike and the law does not. Unpaved for its entire length, frequently soft after rain, and with a towpath's cambers.

Great Allegheny Passage

The Maryland end of the Passage, 20.5 miles of asphalt and crushed stone, managed by Allegany County, the Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy and Mountain Maryland Trails, meeting the C&O at Cumberland.

Maryland also carries a rule that has nothing to do with trails and catches people anyway: bicycles, which include e-bikes, may not be ridden on roads posted above 50 mph or on expressways. On a route where the gaps put you on the road, that is the constraint to plan around.

Washington, D.C.: 7.5 miles, and no Class 3 in the Code

Washington, D.C.: 7.5 miles built and no gap at all.

The District is the route's eastern terminus and its shortest jurisdiction, finished across all 7.5 miles.

Five short trails carry the route through the city: the National Mall trails at 2.4 miles, the Capital Crescent Trail at 2.3, the District's own end of the C&O Canal at 1.5, Rock Creek Park trails at 0.7 and the K Street cycle track at 0.6.

The Park Service is named on four of the five and is the sole manager of three, which makes the federal government the effective trail authority for most of the last miles into the capital.

The District's Code defines a motorized bicycle by a 20 mph ceiling and carries no class vocabulary at all, so on that definition a 28 mph machine is not a motorized bicycle here.

The Code also uses a separate term, "e-bicycle", that this section never defines, and the class vocabulary sits in the District's municipal regulations. Treat the District as settled on the 20 mph definition and open on the detail, and check the posted rule at the National Mall and Rock Creek trailheads.

The best ride available today: Pittsburgh to Washington

If you want the Great American Rail-Trail as it is meant to feel, rather than as a project, this is the section to ride. The Great Allegheny Passage runs 124.7 route miles across Pennsylvania and a further 20.5 in Maryland, meeting the C&O Canal at Cumberland, and the C&O carries you the remaining 180.3 miles into Washington, D.C. End to end that is 325.5 miles with no gap in it.

Ridden west to east it is a net descent, though a rail grade means that word is doing very little work. The Passage is the more comfortable half, with a firmer surface and towns spaced for resupply. The C&O is the wilder half, unpaved throughout, slower after rain, and with long stretches between services.

For an e-bike this is a four-to-six day trip at a civil pace, and the planning constraints are charging and surface rather than range. Towns along the Passage make nightly charging straightforward. On the C&O they are further apart, which is where a second battery stops being a luxury.

The legal reading for these 325 miles is simpler than for the route as a whole, and stricter than some riders expect. Pennsylvania recognizes no Class 2 or Class 3, only a single category capped at 20 mph on motor power with a 100-pound limit on the whole bike and a minimum rider age of 16.

Maryland keeps Class 3 off bicycle paths by default, and the Park Service adopts state law while adding its own throttle restriction. On the C&O the park's order is stricter still: pedaling is required and the limit is 15 mph for everyone. A Class 1 or a Class 2 ridden with the pedals turning is comfortably inside all three.

What the terrain does, and where

A rail-trail is graded for a locomotive, which is the whole reason this route is rideable at all. Almost nowhere on the built mileage will you meet a gradient a loaded e-bike notices. That is the advantage, and it is real.

It is also only true of the built mileage.

Corridor elevation, west to east, sampled every 18.3 miles from the USGS 3DEP dataset. All 140 points returned a measurement.

Sampled along the corridor, the line climbs from 144 feet at Seattle to 9,899 feet between Missoula and Casper, then falls away across the plains and runs under 1,500 feet for most of the eastern half. It ends at 56 feet on the Potomac.

Set that against the completion map and the two shapes are the same. The high ground and the missing trail are the same place: Montana and Wyoming hold 49% of the route's gap miles, and they are also where the corridor crosses the Rockies. Where the trail exists it is gentle. Where it does not, you are on a road at altitude, and the assist that felt generous in Ohio is working against a gradient and thinner air.

Two practical consequences. Battery range on a rail-trail is a poor guide to battery range on the Wyoming road miles, so size the pack against the road sections rather than the towpath ones. And the season table matters more in the west for the same reason: the high stretches are the cold stretches.

The season calendar

Weather decides the riding window more than the trail surface does, and the window narrows sharply as you move west. These are NOAA 1991-2020 climate normals for one town per jurisdiction on the route, ordered west to east, with the station identity verified against NOAA's own station name on every retrieval.

Mean daily high, NOAA 1991-2020 monthly normals. Casper and Missoula sit below 50°F for five months; Washington and Hagerstown pass 85°F in July. The unbuilt middle is also the cold middle.

Three rows are the nearest station that publishes normals rather than the town itself, marked with an asterisk: Lewiston stands in for the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, Hagerstown for the C&O corridor, and the District's figures come from Reagan National, which NOAA records as a Virginia station. Washington State and Nebraska each get two towns because the route crosses both twice over.

Casper sits below freezing on 183.1 days a year and receives 71.8 inches of snow, against 60.1 freeze days in Washington, D.C. The unbuilt middle of the route is also its coldest section, which compounds the problem: the states where you spend most time on the road are the states with the shortest comfortable season.

Two patterns are worth planning around. The eastern third is wet rather than cold, with Pittsburgh and Wheeling both above 150 days of measurable precipitation, and an unpaved towpath after rain rides very differently from the same towpath dry. The western high country is a summer proposition, and the window in Casper and Missoula is realistically June to September.

Planning range around the gaps

Range on this route is not a battery question so much as a question of where the trail stops. The 81 named gaps are where you leave the path, and in Wyoming and Montana they are long.

A useful way to size a battery is to work from the published capacity rather than a manufacturer's range claim, because range claims assume conditions you will not have on crushed stone with luggage.

Those are planning figures for a loaded bike on the mixed surfaces this route actually has, and they sit below the makers' own quoted numbers on purpose. The variables that move them most are surface, gradient, rider and cargo weight, tire pressure and how much throttle you use.

The practical planning rule on the Great American Rail-Trail is to treat the gap, not the battery, as the limiting factor. Nebraska's Cowboy Trail runs 220 miles under one manager, and Wyoming's longest built trail is 9.4 miles. Those two facts should shape a trip more than any spec on this page.

Our picks: what to ride on this route

If this is your first e-bike, read the ten decisions alongside this page, and the buying guide for the specs that decide a purchase. Everything above points the same way. The bike that travels furthest on this route is a Class 1 or Class 2 machine with real battery capacity and a tire that copes with crushed stone, because a Class 3 is outside the definition or off the path by default across 60% of the built trail.

All thirteen definitions on this route stop at 20 mph of assist, so every pick below is a 20 mph machine. Faster bikes, including several we sell, belong on roads and off-road parks instead of a shared-use path, and that is why this list runs to four across three brands.

Every figure below is verified against the manufacturer's published specification and recomputed where the maker quotes a range rather than a capacity. Free shipping across the US, US-based support and our own warranty apply to all four.

Samebike CY20 Pro — the folding option, $599

A 500-watt nominal motor with an 800-watt peak, a 48V 13Ah battery giving 624 Wh, and 20 × 3.0-inch tires on a folding frame. Samebike publishes a 32 km/h top speed, which is 20 mph, and a 36 kg weight, which is 79 pounds.

The folding case is real on this route. With 81 gaps in the line and a median carded trail of 3.6 miles, many of the best segments are reachable only as out-and-backs from a car, and a bike that fits in the trunk changes which of them fit into a weekend.

It suits the paved eastern segments and the town greenways best. On the Palouse to Cascades ballast you would want more tire. If the folding case is what draws you, our folding guide compares the whole shelf, and the folding collection is where to browse them.

See the CY20 Pro · Add to cart

Qiolor TIGER JR — the surface answer, $1,399

Five hundred watts rated with a 750-watt peak and 63 N·m of torque, a 48V 15Ah battery, hydraulic disc brakes and 20 × 4.0-inch tires. Qiolor publishes it as Class 2 at 87 pounds, and its 48V 15Ah pack is 720 Wh.

The tire is the reason it is here. With 63.3% of the built route carrying crushed stone, dirt, gravel or sand somewhere in it, volume does more for comfort and grip over a long day than another hundred watts would.

Qiolor quotes 70 miles on pedal assist and 40 on throttle alone. Plan nearer the lower figure on unpaved surface with luggage.

See the TIGER JR · Add to cart

Eunorau META275 2.0 — the closest thing to a purpose-built rail-trail bike, $1,699

A 500-watt rear motor with 55 N·m, a 48V 15Ah battery with an optional second 15Ah pack, a torque sensor, a Shimano 9-speed drivetrain and 27.5-inch wheels. Eunorau publishes it as Class 2 with a speed limit that is unlockable, and lists it as UL certified.

The 27.5-inch wheel and trekking geometry are what set it apart for this use. Large wheels roll better over crushed stone than 20-inch wheels do, and a torque sensor makes a long day at moderate assist feel like riding rather than being pushed. With both packs it carries 1,440 Wh, enough to link segments across a long gap, though the TIGER RE's larger battery carries more still.

A step-through frame is worth considering for long days in the saddle, and we matched all 55 of ours to riders in the step-thru guide. Ride it as delivered. The unlockable speed setting is the sort of thing that takes a legal e-bike outside a jurisdiction's definition, and on this route that matters in three of thirteen.

See the META275 2.0 · Add to cart

Qiolor TIGER RE — the long-range option, $2,099

Seven hundred and fifty watts with an 1,100-watt peak and 85 N·m, offered with either a 48V 15Ah or a 48V 35Ah battery, rear suspension and 20 × 4.0-inch INNOVA tires. Qiolor publishes it as Class 2 at 87 pounds with the smaller pack and 98 with the larger, so it is the one pick that comes close to Pennsylvania's 100-pound ceiling.

Its 750-watt nominal rating is the thing to weigh against where you ride. Six of the thirteen jurisdictions define an electric bicycle as less than 750 watts, so a 750 machine sits outside their definition across 36.9% of the built trail.

If your riding is mostly Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Idaho, Wyoming or West Virginia, take the 500-watt TIGER JR or the META275 2.0 instead. If it is the eastern half, where the drafting reads "or less", this is the most comfortable bike here over distance. The larger battery is the reason to consider it: 1,680 Wh is enough to cross a gap and keep riding.

Qiolor quotes 60 miles on the smaller pack and 130 on the larger. It is the heaviest-duty bike here and the most comfortable over distance on rough surface.

See the TIGER RE · Add to cart

Shop by what this route asks of a bike

The route does not ask for one kind of machine. It asks for different ones on different thirds, and these are the shelves those thirds point at.

The four bikes above come from three of the brands we carry. If you would rather browse a brand than a category, they are Eunorau, Qiolor and Samebike, and the current reductions sit in on sale. Everything we sell is in all e-bikes.

Why buy from us

How buying from us works sets out the whole process. Free shipping anywhere in the US, US-based support and warranty handling, and a catalog we screen against state law before we recommend anything. If a bike on this page turns out to be wrong for the segment you are riding, we would rather route you to a different one of ours than sell you the wrong machine.

Every built trail on the route

Every built trail on the Great American Rail-Trail, west to east, with the body that governs e-bike access on it. 159 trails, drawn from the trail profile cards in the May 2026 route assessment; the mileage in each jurisdiction reconciles to the Conservancy's own published total.

Washington — 17 built trails, 392.4 miles

Idaho — 2 built trails, 80.2 miles

Montana — 25 built trails, 113 miles

Wyoming — 7 built trails, 20.1 miles

Nebraska — 28 built trails, 312 miles

Iowa — 26 built trails, 256.2 miles

Illinois — 8 built trails, 164.8 miles

Indiana — 10 built trails, 128.3 miles

Ohio — 24 built trails, 242.7 miles

West Virginia — 1 built trails, 4.6 miles

Pennsylvania — 4 built trails, 162.7 miles

Maryland — 2 built trails, 200.8 miles

Washington, D.C. — 5 built trails, 7.5 miles

What the country still has to build

The Route Assessment names 81 trail gaps, and their distribution says where the project stands.

Wyoming alone accounts for 29.7% of everything left to build anywhere on the route.

Four states hold 78.4% of the remaining work. Iowa has the most individual gaps at 18, which is a different problem from Wyoming's: many short closures to negotiate rather than a few enormous ones.

For an e-bike rider specifically, the thing worth advocating for is not only mileage but surface and signage. The Conservancy's criteria commit the route to being walkable and bikeable and separated from traffic. They say nothing about pavement, and on current numbers 63.3% of what has been built is not fully paved.

Where riders get caught out

Six things on this route catch people out, and every one comes from assuming a rule travels further than it does.

Assuming a rail-trail is paved. The phrase describes a gradient, not a surface. Nearly two-thirds of the built route has crushed stone, dirt, gravel or sand somewhere in it, and the longest single segment is ballast and sand. A narrow tire at high pressure will make a beautiful trail miserable.

Assuming the state statute settles it. Eleven of the thirteen say in statute that a land manager may restrict or close a path to a class of e-bike; Montana and the District carry no e-bike path statute we have read either way. 193 managers appear across the built route. The state rule tells you whether your bike is legal. The trailhead sign tells you whether you may ride it there.

Carrying a Class 3 across a state line. A 28 mph pedal-assist bike is a legal e-bike in ten of these jurisdictions and is not an electric bicycle at all in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania or Montana. Nothing about the bike changes at the border; its legal status does.

Riding a national forest section on state rules. The Forest Service treats an e-bike as a motor vehicle, which puts it on designated motor vehicle routes rather than on every trail open to bikes. Idaho and Montana both write permissive e-bike statutes, and neither reaches Forest Service ground.

Using the throttle to coast the C&O. The Park Service permits e-bikes where the superintendent designates them and separately prohibits using the motor alone for an extended period without pedaling. On 180 miles of towpath that is the rule most likely to be broken without anyone meaning to.

Planning range instead of planning gaps. The battery is rarely the binding constraint. Wyoming has 497.5 gap miles and a longest built trail of 9.4 miles, so the question that shapes a trip there is where the trail resumes. A rider who books a week off to ride Wyoming end to end discovers that almost all of it is highway shoulder, while the same week spent on the Cowboy Trail in Nebraska delivers 220 continuous miles under one agency. Choosing the segment well matters more on this route than choosing the bike, and the completion table near the top of this page is the tool for it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Great American Rail-Trail complete?

No. Rails to Trails Conservancy's May 2026 Route Assessment puts the 3,760-mile preferred route at 55.5% complete, with 2,086.2 miles of existing trail and 1,673.8 gap miles across 81 named gaps. Two jurisdictions are finished, the District of Columbia and Maryland.

How much of the Great American Rail-Trail is actually built?

2,086.2 miles as of the May 2026 assessment. Washington State has the most built mileage at 392.4, followed by Nebraska at 312.0 and Iowa at 256.5. Wyoming has the least in proportion to its share, at 20.1 miles of 517.6.

When will the Great American Rail-Trail be finished?

The Conservancy publishes no completion date, and the honest answer from the numbers is that the timetable belongs to hundreds of local landowners rather than to one organization. Wyoming and Montana alone hold 49% of the remaining gap miles, so the finish date is effectively a question about those two states.

Is the Great American Rail-Trail paved?

Only partly. Of the built mileage, 36.7% is asphalt or concrete throughout, 37.2% mixes paved and unpaved surfaces, and 26.1% is unpaved for its whole length. The longest built segment, the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail, is ballast, crushed stone and sand.

Are e-bikes allowed on the Great American Rail-Trail?

There is no single answer, because the Conservancy sets no access rule and does not own the trail. Its published position is that class decisions "are best made by state and local decision-makers." The built route names 193 distinct trail managers, and each one governs its own segment.

Can I ride a Class 3 e-bike on the Great American Rail-Trail?

Not across most of it. A Class 3 is outside the legal definition in the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania and Montana, and is barred from shared paths by default in Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Washington. Those eight jurisdictions carry 60% of the built mileage.

What kind of bike is best for the Great American Rail-Trail?

A Class 1 or Class 2 e-bike with volume tires and real battery capacity. Class 1 or 2 keeps you inside the definition everywhere on the route, and tire volume matters because nearly two-thirds of the built mileage has crushed stone, dirt, gravel or sand in it.

How long does it take to ride the Great American Rail-Trail?

There is no reliable figure, because 1,673.8 miles of the route is not trail yet and the road alternatives vary in quality and safety. The longest continuous car-free section available today is the 325 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. on the Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal.

Where does the Great American Rail-Trail start?

Its eastern terminus is Washington, D.C., where the route runs 7.5 miles through the National Mall, Rock Creek Park, the Capital Crescent Trail and the C&O Canal. Its western terminus is Washington State, reaching the coast via the Olympic Discovery Trail.

Do I need a helmet to ride an e-bike on this route?

It depends where you are. Ohio requires a helmet for every Class 3 operator and passenger at any age. Maryland requires one under 16 on any bicycle, West Virginia under 15, and Indiana for Class 3 riders under 18. Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Idaho write no e-bike helmet rule at state level, and Washington has no statewide helmet law of any kind.

That accounts for nine of the thirteen. Pennsylvania requires a helmet under 12 on any pedalcycle, and we have not read a helmet rule either way for Montana or the District.

The honest ledger

The bottom line

The Great American Rail-Trail is a real, rideable thing for slightly more than half its length, and the finished half is concentrated in the east. If you want the best of it this year, ride the 325 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., or take the 220-mile Cowboy Trail across Nebraska, or the 71 paved miles of the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes.

Buy a Class 1 or Class 2 bike with volume tires and the largest battery you can justify, and check the posted rule at each trailhead rather than assuming the state statute settles it. Of the four bikes we recommend for this route, the Eunorau META275 2.0 is the one we would put a long day on: 27.5-inch wheels, a torque sensor, and a second battery available for the sections where the trail runs out.

Pick the segment before you pick the dates. The completion table above tells you which states will give you trail and which will give you highway shoulder, and that single decision changes a trip more than any component on the bike will.

How we verified this

By Milad Ghobadibeygvand, BScN (Western University, 2014) — Redtail eBikes. This page was last verified: September 7, 2026.

Every mileage figure on this page comes from Rails to Trails Conservancy's Great American Rail-Trail Route Assessment (May 2026), read in full from the Conservancy's own PDF and archived at retrieval. The state table reproduces the assessment's Table 1, and every percentage in it was recomputed from the two mileage columns rather than copied; our sums match the Conservancy's printed totals on all four columns.

The trail-by-trail figures come from the 160 trail profile cards in the same document, 159 of them once the duplicated Ohio to Erie umbrella entry is excluded, read by word coordinates so that each surface, manager and mileage stays attached to the trail it belongs to.

Every one of the thirteen jurisdictions reconciles to the Conservancy's own state totals, and the sum lands on its published 2,086.2 miles. Two adjustments were needed to get there and both are stated in the limitations below.

Legal positions come from the statutes themselves, quoted where the wording decides the question. Seven of the thirteen jurisdictions also have a full, separately fact-checked law page on this site. Climate figures are NOAA 1991-2020 climate normals, with the station identity checked against NOAA's own station name on every retrieval. Bike specifications are read from each manufacturer's own published specification and recomputed where a maker quotes a range instead of a capacity.

Found something we got wrong? Email mehran@redtailebikes.com — verified corrections are published.

Limitations

1. Mileage is the Conservancy's, as of May 2026. Trails open and gaps close continuously. Any figure here is accurate to that assessment and will drift.
2. Two mileage adjustments were required to reconcile the trail cards. Ohio's cards sum to 391.0 miles against a published 242.7 because the Ohio to Erie Trail appears both as a whole and as its own component segments; counting both would double 148.3 miles, so the umbrella entry is excluded. Illinois and Iowa each count a Mississippi River bridge crossing, 0.6 and 0.3 miles, that carries mileage but no trail profile. Together those are the entire difference between the carded total and the published one.
3. Surface classifications are the Conservancy's own strings, grouped by whether they name paved or unpaved materials. A trail recorded as "asphalt, crushed stone" is counted as mixed without any judgement about the proportion.
4. The manager count is of bodies named in the assessment, split on commas and deduplicated. A manager that has changed since May 2026, or one that governs a segment without being named, is not captured.
5. The District of Columbia's path rules are open. Its Code defines a motorized bicycle by a 20 mph ceiling and carries no class vocabulary; the class terms live in the municipal regulations, which this research has not opened.
6. Class verdicts describe state law, not trail policy. A jurisdiction marked "allowed by default" still lets its land managers close any path to any class, and this route has 193 of them.
7. Range figures in the planning table are estimates, derived from published battery capacity for a loaded bike on mixed surface. They are deliberately below manufacturers' quoted ranges.
8. Much of this page rests on a single publisher. Rails to Trails Conservancy is the only body that publishes the route inventory, so the mileage, surfaces, trail names and manager lists have no independent second source to check them against. The trade press corroborates the route's scale, a 3,700-mile line across twelve states, and nothing beyond that. The same is true of each state's own code and of each manufacturer's own specification: the publisher is the authority, and there is no second text. Every figure here was instead checked internally, by recomputing percentages from the underlying mileage and by reconciling all thirteen jurisdictions against the published totals.

What would age this page. Rails to Trails Conservancy publishes a new Route Assessment periodically, and the next edition supersedes every mileage, surface and manager figure here. Illinois has an enacted amendment taking effect on 1 January 2027 that adds a minimum age of 15 for Class 1 and Class 2 riders. Any state legislative session can redraw a class framework, as West Virginia's did in 2023 and Washington's did in June 2026. A superintendent's compendium order can change e-bike designation inside a national park unit at any time without a rule change. Review this page after the next Route Assessment, and after each state's session ends.

Source register

References

1. Rails to Trails Conservancy. Great American Rail-Trail Route Assessment. Washington, DC: Rails to Trails Conservancy, May 2026. https://www.railstotrails.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-GRTRouteAssessment_FinalReduced_061126.pdf
2. Rails to Trails Conservancy. Great American Rail-Trail. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.railstotrails.org/site/greatamericanrailtrail/
3. Rails to Trails Conservancy. Great American Rail-Trail. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.railstotrails.org/site/greatamericanrailtrail/content/maryland/
4. Rails to Trails Conservancy. E-Bikes on the Trail. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.railstotrails.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/E-Bikes-on-the-Trail.pdf
5. Rails to Trails Conservancy. E-Bikes on the Trail (resource page). Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.railstotrails.org/resource-library/resources/e-bikes-on-the-trail/
6. Council of the District of Columbia. D.C. Code § 50-2201.02, definitions. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/50-2201.02
7. Montana Legislature. Montana Code Annotated § 61-8-102, definitions. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://archive.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0610/chapter_0080/part_0010/section_0020/0610-0080-0010-0020.html
8. West Virginia Legislature. W. Va. Code § 17C-11-8, electric bicycles. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://code.wvlegislature.gov/17C-11-8/
9. Pennsylvania General Assembly. 75 Pa.C.S. § 102, definitions. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&ttl=75&div=0&chpt=1
10. Maryland General Assembly. Md. Code, Transportation § 21-1205.2. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=gtr&section=21-1205.2
11. Ohio General Assembly. Ohio Revised Code § 4511.522. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-4511.522
12. Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 9-21-11-13.1. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://iga.in.gov/laws/2024/ic/titles/9#9-21-11-13.1
13. Washington State Legislature. RCW 46.61.710. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=46.61.710
14. Illinois General Assembly. 625 ILCS 5/11-1517. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=062500050K11-1517
15. Iowa Legislature. Iowa Code § 321.235B. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/321.235B.pdf
16. Nebraska Legislature. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 60-611, as amended by LB 138 (2023). Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=60-611
17. Wyoming Legislature. Wyo. Stat. § 31-5-707. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://wyoleg.gov/statutes/compress/title31.pdf
18. Idaho Legislature. Idaho Code §§ 49-725, 49-728. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title49/T49CH7/SECT49-725/
19. US Government Publishing Office. 36 C.F.R. § 4.30, Bicycles (eCFR). Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-I/part-4/section-4.30
20. National Park Service. E-bikes subject page. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/biking/e-bikes.htm
21. US Government Publishing Office. 36 C.F.R. § 212.1, Travel Management definitions (eCFR). Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-36/chapter-II/subchapter-C/part-212/subpart-A/section-212.1
22. US Government Publishing Office. 36 C.F.R. § 212.1, CFR-2024 annual edition XML. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2024-title36-vol2/xml/CFR-2024-title36-vol2-sec212-1.xml
23. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020, annual and seasonal product. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/normals-annualseasonal/1991-2020/access/
24. Eunorau. META275 2.0 product specification. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://eunorau-ebike.com/products/meta275-2-0
25. Qiolor. TIGER JR product specification. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://qiolor.com/products/tiger-jr
26. Qiolor. TIGER RE product specification. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://qiolor.com/products/tiger-re
27. Samebike. CY20 Pro product specification, US storefront. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://us.samebike.com/products/cy20-pro-spoked-wheel-portable-commuter-powerful-peak-800w-electric-bike
28. Eahora. Luna II product specification. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.eahoraebike.com/products/eahora-luna-ii
29. National Park Service. Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, Superintendent's Compendium 2026. Retrieved 7 September 2026. https://www.nps.gov/choh/learn/management/upload/2026-CHOH-Compendium-508a.pdf