Fatbike makers already planning “skinny bike” to evade minimum age & helmet laws

Fat bike manufacturers are already finding workarounds to the Tweede Kamer’s plans to put an age limit and helmet obligation on fat bikes. They’re working on a skinny bike, which has slightly thinner tires and a shorter and adjustable saddle—targeting every characteristic parliament wants to use to identify the fat bike.

“If the Tweede Kamer closes one door, we will open another,” Pieter van Beusekom of fat bike manufacturer Phatfour told the Telegraaf. “We have to build bikes that we can sell, and we will work around the rules. Of course, we will continue to build legal bikes as we do now.”

A majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, wants to limit fat bikes to riders aged 14 or older and require them to wear helmets. Whether this will actually happen remains to be seen.

Minister Barry Madlener of Infrastructure and Water Management seems reluctant to implement these rules, warning of legal difficulties in distinguishing between fat bikes and other e-bikes. Madlener told the Kamer he would study the proposals and thinks that a helmet requirement and age limit is certainly possible, but may have to apply to all electric bicycles.

Manufacturer Brekr is also working on a skinny bike. “We are also in favor of a minimum age, but if you only do that for fat bikes, you don’t solve the problem,” owner Niels Willems told NOS. “We first saw the moped, for which a helmet was mandatory. Then those people jumped en masse on the fat bike. Now they’ll perhaps move on to the skinny bike or a regular electric bike.”

Willems thinks the government will only keep young riders off fast bikes if they implement an age limit on all e-bikes. “Because all electric bikes can be tuned up and can then be dangerous for children.”