5 ms·

Fatbikes are wreaking havoc in Sydney's wealthy beach suburbs

36 points by randycupertino 8mo ago

mnky9800n 8mo ago
> "I compare it to Covid," says Harold Scruby, the chairman of the Pedestrian Council of Australia. "It starts here and if they don't put a stop to it…" he trails off as he contemplates the apparently inexorable spread of teenagers on illegal fatbikes. Most modern news writing needs more flourish such as this.
- blitzar 8mo ago
  Would have been a better flourish if Harold used Herpes as the comparison rather than Covid.
- shermozle 8mo ago
  Harold Scruby and his "Pedestrian Council of Australia" is one man and a fax machine who's been blaming victims for decades. Any news media who quotes him without pointing this out loses all authority.
  - mnky9800n 8mo ago
    this makes it even better. haha.
ggm 8mo ago
We're plagued by these, and by souped up electric trail bikes. Kids far too young to die or get quadriplegia, blasting around in traffic. Usually with no sense of time and place. By law they are meant to be 25kph speed capped and require pedalling. They are doing 50pkh plus and take off like a scalded cat, doing wheelies. I'm terrified for my own safety and theirs. I can't see this ending well.
- 14 8mo ago
  I also hate it when kids have fun
  - ggm 8mo ago
    Look I get it, I deserve an "ok boomer" but they have got at BEST cycle protection, certainly not a full face helmet, rarely shoes even. It's a disaster waiting to happen. There were 14 deaths in Queensland in 2025 for this class of vehicle, way above normal level.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 8mo ago
      You know? Since about 1980 I did wheelies too, on my road bicycle. And up to 70kph on flat grounds for up to two minutes. Then having to go down to 55 to 60, which I could hold up for an hour, depending on weather, fitness (varying). No helmet, ever. Also no broken bones, or having caused others to crash. Annoyances maybe, but such is youth :-) I'm of the opinion that this "disaster waiting to happen" thinking is a disaster by itself. I may concede that some of these kids are too reckless too often to be good for them, because e-bikes make it too easy to go that fast, without having developed the ability to handle these speeds safely first, or knowing where not to(sharp curves, rain, wet leafs, sand, fine gravel, etc(Did I mention I rode iced roads in winter?)). But in principle the ride is getting more stable at higher speeds, because gyroscopically stabilized by the spinning wheels. I see it as a darwinian filter of fitness. Sieving out stupid. Just like that. If you don't give youth the chance to navigate that, there will be more and more unfit. No amount of laws will change that.
      - defrost 8mo ago
        We all took risks in the 1980s, kids thrive on risk. The element of risk existing is not the argument being made here by ggm - it's the morphing and stretching of of the acturial mortality and morbidity curve. The claim being made is that unregulateled electric bikes mixing in neophyte road users, suburban traffic, uncapped speeds, etc is increasing the per capita risk for an age band over what it was when "we" inhabited that demographic tribe back in our short pant days.
- madaxe_again 8mo ago
  I saw a young lady on a velocipede travelling at a positively indecent speed, wearing trousers, and several horses were rather badly startled. The moral degeneracy of the younger generation knows no bounds.
47282847 8mo ago
What is missing from the discussion? If you want somebody to stop what they’re doing, see how to provide/offer alternatives that meet the needs they’re getting out of what you don’t want them to do. Not very difficult to understand as a fundamental principle of life, but seemingly difficult to operate by?
- interstice 8mo ago
  Nzer but some cultural overlap between here and Aus, that’s far too advanced. Auckland for eg has almost unusable busses and trains but the answer to congestion is apparently to make it impossible to park in the cbd, rather than make any actual improvements.
gmerc 8mo ago
Rich people inconvenienced suddenly by something that's been in other neighborhoods for years. It's serious now.
jakecopp 8mo ago
Without excusing the behaviour around illegal electric motorbikes, there has also been absolutely shocking media coverage in Australia on road deaths. Here's a summary of a particularly bad week of coverage: https://jakecoppinger.com/2025/12/why-wont-the-media-report-accurately-on-road-deaths/ https://jakecoppinger.com/2025/12/why-wont-the-media-report-... Did you notice this article doesn't have a single mention of safe bike lanes? In Australia we spend ~0.2% of our transport budget on cycling and walking infrastructure - and see very low rates of cycling (and terrible safety outcomes) as a result. See stats on the Australian situation at https://australiancyclewaystats.jakecoppinger.com/ https://australiancyclewaystats.jakecoppinger.com/ The BBC would have done well to read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_Council_of_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_Council_of_Australi... before seeking quotes.
- wzdd 8mo ago
  Over the top as mandatory registration of cyclists may be, he has a point on shared bike lanes. They're awful both for cyclists and pedestrians. From a cyclist's perspective you have a narrow path filled with effectively-immobile obstacles; from a pedestrian's you have a machine coming at you at speed which could cause you significant harm.
  - jakecopp 8mo ago
    > [shared lanes] They're awful both for cyclists and pedestrians. People riding bikes would always prefer a dedicated separated cycleway. Cyclists want to be on the footpath less than people walking want them there - they would only use it because it's safer than the road. What usually happens here (and I assume is common in the US!) is the state transport department veto's taking away space from cars to build a proper bike lane, forcing people and bikes to fight over the scraps of street space left behind. A particularly egregious example of exactly this scenario playing out: https://jakecoppinger.com/2024/09/another-broken-westconnex-promise-secret-sydney-park-junction-design-changes/ https://jakecoppinger.com/2024/09/another-broken-westconnex-... If someone is arguing against shared paths - you should make sure they are arguing for bike lanes too. Otherwise they are not trying to be constructive.
- 8mo ago
blitzar 8mo ago
Children of wealthy people, living in wealthy beach suburbs, wreaking havoc in their own neighbourhood. They might be coming in from the slums of Vaucluse.
- expedition32 8mo ago
  Fatbikes are not expensive. The Chinese jumped on this market. In my own country you can frequently see 12 year old boys and girls on fatbikes. And they go fast. When a fatbike collides with a pedestrian the end result is not pretty.
  - ghaff 8mo ago
    During the warmer months I regularly come into town for a sidewalk dinner in an east coast city in the US. There's a protected bike lane and the combination of vehicles (and pedestrians crossing) is a bit terrifying--as is the fact that stopping at the red light for the next cross street is inconsistent at best.
  - blitzar 8mo ago
    The fatbikes the kids are riding might not be expensive, but their parents houses are. You would have to ride a long way from Bondi to find a neighbourhood with less than a $5mil average house price.
ramon156 8mo ago
A lot of western Europe has a similar issue. It's not the Fatbikes per se, but what people do with it -Harassing people -Not following Traffic rules
anon_e-moose 8mo ago
Didn't Australia recently ban social media for under 16s? Sounds like kids are rediscovering fun and socialization in the outdoors. Isn't this an unintended byproduct of what Australians wanted and legislated for? They really could have added some bike lanes though.
- rmccue 8mo ago
  This predates the social media laws which only started in December.
impossiblefork 8mo ago
I actually don't think this looks that bad. I think it might even be good for them. If young people are eschewing helmets, I can see making a helmet law, but even if they take over a lane of traffic, they seem to be going in such large groups, that if they'd been in cars or other vehicles, moving in the most orderly manner imaginable, they'd be blocking the intersection just as effectively. Consequently I think this is mostly fine. The big problems are the helmet issue and I also think they might need knee protection. 60 km/h is a bit high if they're made for 25 km/h, but most of this stuff is achievable with ordinary bicycles.
- rmccue 8mo ago
  > If young people are eschewing helmets, I can see making a helmet law Australia already has mandatory helmet laws for cycling; the person quoted is pointing out that they’re breaking the law.
- cam_l 8mo ago
  I have seen them fall off their bikes in the middle of intersections on more than one occasion, hit people riding on the footpath, more than a few try to bully me off the road, doing dumbarse stunts in the process. One I saw got taken to hospital. The issue is not so much the bikes or where they are riding, it is the brain dead groupthink mentality of a bunch of antisocial little rich boys who haven't been taught basic self preservation.. or what is feels like to be punched in the face on account of doing 50ks on a crowded footpath.
jorisboris 8mo ago
Amsterdam also declared war against fatbikes. There are plenty of electrical bikes in Amsterdam, but only fatbikes are the problem according to the Amsterdam City Government. It seems they are targeted as a proxy for the people who drive them, which are generally younger people. Maybe every year we should ban the car brands with most accidents. Kinda the same idea?
boringg 8mo ago
This comment thread is hilarious. Split down the line of the people who are like (let kids be kids, let them have fun) and the other group being concerned about the general welfare of everyone else. I suspect the kids do whatever they want group dont have any experience with the actual nuisance complaint but provide a knee jerk reaction. Id wager its not dissimilar to the delivery ebike nuisance in nyc - which is problematic.
- andrepd 8mo ago
  If ebikes are a nuisance or a danger then cars weighing 100× more should be even more concerning. Yet cars are a "fact of life" and bikes are a "nuisance" somehow... Go figure.
  - xnx 8mo ago
    It sounds like you don't live in a city with an ebike delivery problem. I'd prefer a city with fewer human driven cars, but ebikes being ridden erratically (40mph against traffic, through red lights, on the sidewalk, etc.) sucks.
    - andrepd 8mo ago
      > It sounds like you don't live in a city with an ebike delivery problem Oh but I do. Or actually, in a city with many delivery ebikes but no "ebike problem" . Why? Because there's bike infrastructure. Meaning segregated lanes to ride a bike (and overall good urban design in general). On a given street or road there's a place to drive a car, a place do ride a bike, a place for the bus/tram to go, and a place to walk. Is this really so difficult? Tell me if you please, in a city where there's only a place to drive and a place to walk, where exactly are bikes (delivery or not) supposed to go? Cars kill several times more than even the most maniac ebike riders possibly can. They also emit pollution that kills swathes of people (an invisible, background death). It's just common sense.
  - boringg 8mo ago
    Thats funny. Non scrupulous ebikers rip through pedestrian sections. And i agree with the other commentator, you obviously dont live in a dense city with e bike delivery.
andrepd 8mo ago
Many thousands of people die every day in car crashes and this is thought to be just a fact of life as natural as the sun rising. Suddenly a couple of teenagers doing wheelies is a menace. Just build some fucking bike lanes, all you need is literally concrete blocks and green paint. Spend a fraction of what you spend on highway widenings on this and your problem is gone.
cadamsdotcom 8mo ago
I am in my early 40s and live in Bondi. Fatbikes are everywhere and it is absolutely NOT a problem. 99% of the time they’re used safely. It’s pretty clutch to see a kid pull a thumb trigger to do a wheelie. Besides, if you mess your bike up by dropping it, there’s no hiding it from your parents. Article is exaggerated for the clicks. If you find yourself getting outraged, come touch grass by touching the sand at our beautiful beach. Life is actually pretty awesome, and kids having fun & letting off steam with e-bikes is a fantastic use of technology.
Sabinus 8mo ago
It is amusing to me that we had articles about DOGE flagged but this is considered worthy of discussion.
mindslight 8mo ago
The obvious answer is identifying plates, just as how we prevent mayhem from cars. No need to chase, just send a summons in the mail. Of course they're a privacy vulnerability, so they should really be reimagined to be something like epaper that changes every few minutes, only decodeable for bona fide purposes by the vehicle registry, with a logged audit chain. Also if you want people to respect the law then the government needs to resist the urge to use the registration as a pretext to levy fees and taxes.

> "I compare it to Covid," says Harold Scruby, the chairman of the Pedestrian Council of Australia. "It starts here and if they don't put a stop to it…" he trails off as he contemplates the apparently inexorable spread of teenagers on illegal fatbikes. Most modern news writing needs more flourish such as this.

blitzar 8mo ago
Would have been a better flourish if Harold used Herpes as the comparison rather than Covid.
shermozle 8mo ago
Harold Scruby and his "Pedestrian Council of Australia" is one man and a fax machine who's been blaming victims for decades. Any news media who quotes him without pointing this out loses all authority.
- mnky9800n 8mo ago
  this makes it even better. haha.

ggm 8mo ago

We're plagued by these, and by souped up electric trail bikes. Kids far too young to die or get quadriplegia, blasting around in traffic. Usually with no sense of time and place. By law they are meant to be 25kph speed capped and require pedalling. They are doing 50pkh plus and take off like a scalded cat, doing wheelies. I'm terrified for my own safety and theirs. I can't see this ending well.

14 8mo ago
I also hate it when kids have fun
- ggm 8mo ago
  Look I get it, I deserve an "ok boomer" but they have got at BEST cycle protection, certainly not a full face helmet, rarely shoes even. It's a disaster waiting to happen. There were 14 deaths in Queensland in 2025 for this class of vehicle, way above normal level.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 8mo ago
    You know? Since about 1980 I did wheelies too, on my road bicycle. And up to 70kph on flat grounds for up to two minutes. Then having to go down to 55 to 60, which I could hold up for an hour, depending on weather, fitness (varying). No helmet, ever. Also no broken bones, or having caused others to crash. Annoyances maybe, but such is youth :-) I'm of the opinion that this "disaster waiting to happen" thinking is a disaster by itself. I may concede that some of these kids are too reckless too often to be good for them, because e-bikes make it too easy to go that fast, without having developed the ability to handle these speeds safely first, or knowing where not to(sharp curves, rain, wet leafs, sand, fine gravel, etc(Did I mention I rode iced roads in winter?)). But in principle the ride is getting more stable at higher speeds, because gyroscopically stabilized by the spinning wheels. I see it as a darwinian filter of fitness. Sieving out stupid. Just like that. If you don't give youth the chance to navigate that, there will be more and more unfit. No amount of laws will change that.
    - defrost 8mo ago
      We all took risks in the 1980s, kids thrive on risk. The element of risk existing is not the argument being made here by ggm - it's the morphing and stretching of of the acturial mortality and morbidity curve. The claim being made is that unregulateled electric bikes mixing in neophyte road users, suburban traffic, uncapped speeds, etc is increasing the per capita risk for an age band over what it was when "we" inhabited that demographic tribe back in our short pant days.
madaxe_again 8mo ago
I saw a young lady on a velocipede travelling at a positively indecent speed, wearing trousers, and several horses were rather badly startled. The moral degeneracy of the younger generation knows no bounds.

47282847 8mo ago

What is missing from the discussion? If you want somebody to stop what they’re doing, see how to provide/offer alternatives that meet the needs they’re getting out of what you don’t want them to do. Not very difficult to understand as a fundamental principle of life, but seemingly difficult to operate by?

interstice 8mo ago
Nzer but some cultural overlap between here and Aus, that’s far too advanced. Auckland for eg has almost unusable busses and trains but the answer to congestion is apparently to make it impossible to park in the cbd, rather than make any actual improvements.

gmerc 8mo ago

Rich people inconvenienced suddenly by something that's been in other neighborhoods for years. It's serious now.

jakecopp 8mo ago

Without excusing the behaviour around illegal electric motorbikes, there has also been absolutely shocking media coverage in Australia on road deaths. Here's a summary of a particularly bad week of coverage: https://jakecoppinger.com/2025/12/why-wont-the-media-report-accurately-on-road-deaths/ https://jakecoppinger.com/2025/12/why-wont-the-media-report-... Did you notice this article doesn't have a single mention of safe bike lanes? In Australia we spend ~0.2% of our transport budget on cycling and walking infrastructure - and see very low rates of cycling (and terrible safety outcomes) as a result. See stats on the Australian situation at https://australiancyclewaystats.jakecoppinger.com/ https://australiancyclewaystats.jakecoppinger.com/ The BBC would have done well to read up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_Council_of_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_Council_of_Australi... before seeking quotes.

wzdd 8mo ago
Over the top as mandatory registration of cyclists may be, he has a point on shared bike lanes. They're awful both for cyclists and pedestrians. From a cyclist's perspective you have a narrow path filled with effectively-immobile obstacles; from a pedestrian's you have a machine coming at you at speed which could cause you significant harm.
- jakecopp 8mo ago
  > [shared lanes] They're awful both for cyclists and pedestrians. People riding bikes would always prefer a dedicated separated cycleway. Cyclists want to be on the footpath less than people walking want them there - they would only use it because it's safer than the road. What usually happens here (and I assume is common in the US!) is the state transport department veto's taking away space from cars to build a proper bike lane, forcing people and bikes to fight over the scraps of street space left behind. A particularly egregious example of exactly this scenario playing out: https://jakecoppinger.com/2024/09/another-broken-westconnex-promise-secret-sydney-park-junction-design-changes/ https://jakecoppinger.com/2024/09/another-broken-westconnex-... If someone is arguing against shared paths - you should make sure they are arguing for bike lanes too. Otherwise they are not trying to be constructive.
8mo ago

blitzar 8mo ago

Children of wealthy people, living in wealthy beach suburbs, wreaking havoc in their own neighbourhood. They might be coming in from the slums of Vaucluse.

expedition32 8mo ago
Fatbikes are not expensive. The Chinese jumped on this market. In my own country you can frequently see 12 year old boys and girls on fatbikes. And they go fast. When a fatbike collides with a pedestrian the end result is not pretty.
- ghaff 8mo ago
  During the warmer months I regularly come into town for a sidewalk dinner in an east coast city in the US. There's a protected bike lane and the combination of vehicles (and pedestrians crossing) is a bit terrifying--as is the fact that stopping at the red light for the next cross street is inconsistent at best.
- blitzar 8mo ago
  The fatbikes the kids are riding might not be expensive, but their parents houses are. You would have to ride a long way from Bondi to find a neighbourhood with less than a $5mil average house price.

ramon156 8mo ago

A lot of western Europe has a similar issue. It's not the Fatbikes per se, but what people do with it -Harassing people -Not following Traffic rules

anon_e-moose 8mo ago

Didn't Australia recently ban social media for under 16s? Sounds like kids are rediscovering fun and socialization in the outdoors. Isn't this an unintended byproduct of what Australians wanted and legislated for? They really could have added some bike lanes though.

rmccue 8mo ago
This predates the social media laws which only started in December.

impossiblefork 8mo ago

I actually don't think this looks that bad. I think it might even be good for them. If young people are eschewing helmets, I can see making a helmet law, but even if they take over a lane of traffic, they seem to be going in such large groups, that if they'd been in cars or other vehicles, moving in the most orderly manner imaginable, they'd be blocking the intersection just as effectively. Consequently I think this is mostly fine. The big problems are the helmet issue and I also think they might need knee protection. 60 km/h is a bit high if they're made for 25 km/h, but most of this stuff is achievable with ordinary bicycles.

rmccue 8mo ago
> If young people are eschewing helmets, I can see making a helmet law Australia already has mandatory helmet laws for cycling; the person quoted is pointing out that they’re breaking the law.
cam_l 8mo ago
I have seen them fall off their bikes in the middle of intersections on more than one occasion, hit people riding on the footpath, more than a few try to bully me off the road, doing dumbarse stunts in the process. One I saw got taken to hospital. The issue is not so much the bikes or where they are riding, it is the brain dead groupthink mentality of a bunch of antisocial little rich boys who haven't been taught basic self preservation.. or what is feels like to be punched in the face on account of doing 50ks on a crowded footpath.

jorisboris 8mo ago

Amsterdam also declared war against fatbikes. There are plenty of electrical bikes in Amsterdam, but only fatbikes are the problem according to the Amsterdam City Government. It seems they are targeted as a proxy for the people who drive them, which are generally younger people. Maybe every year we should ban the car brands with most accidents. Kinda the same idea?

boringg 8mo ago

This comment thread is hilarious. Split down the line of the people who are like (let kids be kids, let them have fun) and the other group being concerned about the general welfare of everyone else. I suspect the kids do whatever they want group dont have any experience with the actual nuisance complaint but provide a knee jerk reaction. Id wager its not dissimilar to the delivery ebike nuisance in nyc - which is problematic.

andrepd 8mo ago
If ebikes are a nuisance or a danger then cars weighing 100× more should be even more concerning. Yet cars are a "fact of life" and bikes are a "nuisance" somehow... Go figure.
- xnx 8mo ago
  It sounds like you don't live in a city with an ebike delivery problem. I'd prefer a city with fewer human driven cars, but ebikes being ridden erratically (40mph against traffic, through red lights, on the sidewalk, etc.) sucks.
  - andrepd 8mo ago
    > It sounds like you don't live in a city with an ebike delivery problem Oh but I do. Or actually, in a city with many delivery ebikes but no "ebike problem" . Why? Because there's bike infrastructure. Meaning segregated lanes to ride a bike (and overall good urban design in general). On a given street or road there's a place to drive a car, a place do ride a bike, a place for the bus/tram to go, and a place to walk. Is this really so difficult? Tell me if you please, in a city where there's only a place to drive and a place to walk, where exactly are bikes (delivery or not) supposed to go? Cars kill several times more than even the most maniac ebike riders possibly can. They also emit pollution that kills swathes of people (an invisible, background death). It's just common sense.
- boringg 8mo ago
  Thats funny. Non scrupulous ebikers rip through pedestrian sections. And i agree with the other commentator, you obviously dont live in a dense city with e bike delivery.

andrepd 8mo ago

Many thousands of people die every day in car crashes and this is thought to be just a fact of life as natural as the sun rising. Suddenly a couple of teenagers doing wheelies is a menace. Just build some fucking bike lanes, all you need is literally concrete blocks and green paint. Spend a fraction of what you spend on highway widenings on this and your problem is gone.

cadamsdotcom 8mo ago

I am in my early 40s and live in Bondi. Fatbikes are everywhere and it is absolutely NOT a problem. 99% of the time they’re used safely. It’s pretty clutch to see a kid pull a thumb trigger to do a wheelie. Besides, if you mess your bike up by dropping it, there’s no hiding it from your parents. Article is exaggerated for the clicks. If you find yourself getting outraged, come touch grass by touching the sand at our beautiful beach. Life is actually pretty awesome, and kids having fun & letting off steam with e-bikes is a fantastic use of technology.

Sabinus 8mo ago

It is amusing to me that we had articles about DOGE flagged but this is considered worthy of discussion.

mindslight 8mo ago

The obvious answer is identifying plates, just as how we prevent mayhem from cars. No need to chase, just send a summons in the mail. Of course they're a privacy vulnerability, so they should really be reimagined to be something like epaper that changes every few minutes, only decodeable for bona fide purposes by the vehicle registry, with a logged audit chain. Also if you want people to respect the law then the government needs to resist the urge to use the registration as a pretext to levy fees and taxes.