Money and incentives are very powerful, but also remember that these organizations are made of humans. And humans are vain.

Amassing station and power can scarcely be divorced from the history of human civilization, and even fairly trivial things like the job title of “AI engineer” or whatever might be alluring to those aspiring for it.

To that end, it’s not inhuman to pursue “the next big thing”, however misguided that thing may be. All good lies are wrapped in a kernel of truth, and the fact is that machine learning and LLMs have been in development for decades and do have a few concrete contributions to scientific endeavors. But that’s the small kernel, and surrounding it is a soup of lies, exaggerations, and inexactitudes which somehow keep drawing more entities into the fold.

Governments, businesses, and universities seem eager to get on the bandwagon before it departs the station, but where is it heading? Probably nowhere good. But hey, it’s new and shiny, and when nothing else suggests a quick turnaround for systemic political, economic, or academic issues (usually caused by colonialism, fascism, debt, racism, or social change), then might as well hitch onto the bandwagon and pray for the best.

As a sidenote, I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who regards the ~650 km trek from SF to LA as “fun”, unless somehow they’re flying their own private aircraft there. Obviously, there are many options to travel between the two major population centers of California, including: commercial aircraft, private bus line, nationally-operated Amtrak, state-sponsored Amtrak California, private automobile, bicycle, and good ol walking.

Not to say all of these are equally popular, but compared to many places outside the USA, getting between these two hubs really ought to be cheap, yet it’s not. The best chance at fixing that is by rail, which of those aforementioned choices, moves the most people at once, has the widest catchment area along the line, is only moderately expensive, and dove-tails into existing urban transit in SF and LA.

No, I’m not talking about California High Speed Rail, although I’m looking forward to that one too. That said, HSR serves a different role: geting to LA in the shortest possible time, since airport delays mean HSR’s 350 kph can be faster than an airplane’s 1100 kph + 0 kph waiting in the TSA line.

Rather, I’m talking about conventional rail corridors that already exist and just need a few upgrades to support additional passenger service. Adding passing tracks to freight corridors mean trains can move along at some 79 MPH (127 kph), which is both competitive with automobile speeds but trains carry so many more people than even two or three buses. The cost per passenger is thus potentially very low, getting us closer to that $20 figure while also being “easy” to ride. The state is already making this happen, although it’ll take time for ridership to ramp up, which will allow the fares to drop.

Is a train considered “fun”? I personally think so, but others might value not being felt up by TSA or the ability to have a drink while admiring the coast through the window.

Max Bike Load 560 Lbs

Rotors 203mm Front / 180mm Rear

Reiterating my prior objections, I think rotors like this might not be adequate to slow or stop a fully loaded 560 lbs (254 kg) ebike.

Current legislation has not caught up to deal with heavy + fast Class 3 ebikes, and the only restriction that exists here in California is that all bicycles need to be “equipped with a brake that will enable the operator to make one braked wheel skid on dry, level, clean pavement”.

As is plainly evident, this is a rather antiquated way to define bicycle stopping power, but it also reflects the generally low-touch regulations that have existed here regarding acoustic bicycles. It is, IMO, bonkers to intentionally run a bicycle with only a single braked wheel, but that’s where the law sets the floor.

My concern then is that a fully loaded bike hauling a fully loaded trailer would fail even this antiquated requirement, if its rear brake proves unable to halt the wheel. Typical bicycles benefit from the load-transfer during deceleration to lift the rear wheel, easily causing a skid that proves compliance with the law. Heavily loaded bikes might fail this test, or might have to be tested by skidding the front wheel. But that’s just asking for a crash.

I’m not at all endorsing the antiquated standard, but I think trying that test under full load would be very telling. Put it like this: I do not want to be ahead of someone that’s hauling way too much weight and is underbraked. Gamesmanship with manufacturer weight ratings will eventually cause an overload-related crash, and the subsequent regulatory changes will likely be unkind to fast, heavy ebikes, putting more regulatory hurdles in the way of getting more people riding.

Direct link (PDF) to the class action complaint filed with the federal Southern District Court of New York.

This is certainly a different avenue than I expected for vindicating the rights of NYC cyclists, but is very welcome. Conventionally, when a law is enforced improperly, the matter is adjudicated and that settles the matter for the person in question. However, that does not necessarily set “legal precedence”, which is the obligation for other courts and judges to rule in the same way.

To establish that a law is indeed being wrongly applied, someone would have to either appeal their case to the appellate court – whose ruling would then set precedence for all the lower courts to follow – or they file suit for “declaratory judgement”, where a court is asked specifically to rule on the validity of some law, regulation, or contract. And that in-depth analysis would set precedence, because it specifically litigates the core legality of what’s in question.

Declaratory judgement is what I thought would happen, but here, they’ve taken a different approach. Because the plaintiff posits that the law is clearly on their side – with zero room for any other interpretation, bolstered by the fact that a judge dismissed the charge against the cyclist earlier – they argue NYPD is operating unconstitutionally, violating whole swaths of people’s rights.

After all, the issue isn’t that some law conflicts with other laws, but that NYPD is systemically misapplying the wrong law against people conducting themselves lawfully. That’s akin to constantly prosecuting pedestrians for a failure to use low-beams at night. So absurd it is, the plaintiffs claim, that it amounts to unconstitutional harassment.

Hence, they bring a class action claim to vindicate the constitutional right to not be falsely arrested (4th Amendment, NY Constitution, and common law), and the right to be free from malicious prosecution. Note that it’s common to use a “scattergun” approach for lawsuits, in the hope that any one of these will stick.

With all that said, this is a bigger lift than “declaratory judgement” would have been, but unlike that process, this class action allows prior victims of NYPD’s false arrests to recover some money from the city, if they join the class action. As with all class action suits, the defendant will challenge the class definition, likely arguing that not every class member suffered equal harm.

And that’s possibly true: being dragged to court for an improper traffic citation affects people differently, whether they have to arrange child care for the day or whether they had to hire a lawyer or not. But the response to that would be: the harm suffered by the class was the constitutional rights that were trampled on. And it is very well settled that wrongly abridged constitutional rights, if for even a brief moment, is a cognizable harm that can be redressed in court.

Typically, business-oriented vendors will list the hardware that they’ve thoroughly tested and will warranty for operation with their product. The lack of testing larger disk sizes does not necessarily mean anything larger than 1 TB is locked out or technically infeasible. It just means the vendor won’t offer to help if it doesn’t work.

That said, in the enterprise storage space where disks are densely packed into disk shelves with monstrous SAS or NVMeoF configurations, vendor specific drives are not unheard of. But to possess hardware that even remotely has that possibility kinda means that sort of thing would be readily apparent.

To be clear, the mobo has a built-in HBA which you’re using, or you’re adding a separate HBA over PCIe that you already have? If the latter, I can’t see how the mobo can dictate what the HBA supports. And if it’s in IT mode, then the OS is mostly in control of addressing the drive.

The short answer is: you’ll have to try it and find out. And when you do, let us know what you find!

I’m not a pilot but have always looked to the open skies with dreams and admiration. I think we need to unpack a few assumptions.

something that’s very forbidden in the aviation world because of lightning

Weather (WX) has always been an integral part of aviation, as early as the lighter-than-air (ie hot-air balloon) days. The strength of human kind is no match to what nature can throw at us, and so instead we adapt to what nature gives us. On one hand, nature provides niceties like prevailing wind and thermals, to allow us to build runways pointing into the wind and for gliders to gain altitude. On the other hand, nature can decide that an Icelandic volcano shoots hundreds of thousands of tons of particulate matter into the air, grounding all commercial flights in European airspace.

Resilience becomes the objective, to safely operate revenue aircraft in the face of fickle natural phenomena. And this is achieved in a multi-layer approach, with resilience baked in at every step. The aircraft itself, the crew, the airports, ATC, and the regulators, they all are trained and briefed on known hazards, which is part of why commercial aviation is one of the safest modes of travel, sans maybe the elevator.

Unlike volcanic activity or windshears/microbursts, thunderstorms and lightning give plenty of warning through day-ahead WX forecasts, as well as onboard radar. These are not fool-proof – for example, radar can be shadowed by nearby precipitation, hiding enormous thunder clouds beyond. But despite how terrifying it may sound to fly through a storm, it isn’t impossible and certainly not unmanageable. But it does take preparation, and requires sufficient margins so that if anything starts to look awry, there’s an escape path.

Often times, the escape path is just to climb away.

Lightning struck the plane … which could’ve been catastrophic

There are many things which are potentially catastrophic for aircraft: loss of engines, loss of pressurization, a lithium ion battery fire in the cargo compartment, a medical emergency while overflying the mid-Atlantic.

But while a gut-reaction would be to outright avoid risk, human endeavors can make no progress like that. So instead, worst-case planning means developing procedures for when not if something bad happens.

Aircraft are designed to take lightning strikes, and although the Boeing 787 uses a lot of composite material, it too has provisions for lightning.

the report for this incident

Seeing as the incident here occurred on 17 March 2025, I wouldn’t expect the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB; the air safety regulator, equivalent to USA NTSB) to have published a final report. There might be a preliminary report, but this is not that.

This appears to be a collection of ADS-B data, a mention of damage to a control surface, and a Twitter post about airline compensation due to diverting from Haneda (HND) to Narita (NRT).

Were it not for the control surface damage, this incident might have fallen below the threshold for reporting, since no source suggests there were injuries and I don’t see – having not watched the video – an emergency being declared by the pilots. Diversions are not wholly uncommon, for a number of operational or WX reasons.

I’m pretty sure if a US or European pilot did this, they’d get their license revoked

I think this is wrong, based solely on the robust safety culture in both the USA and in European airspace. Safety culture means that procesures are developed to manage risk, these procedures are regularly practiced, are updated with the latest available recommendations, and non-wilful deviations from procedure (aka mistakes) will be addressed by additional training, not by punishment.

As Mentour Pilot eloquently reminds viewers of his YouTube channel, if punishment were metted out for every mistake, then it’s a disincentive to report mistakes, which makes safety worse for everyone, because nothing gets fixed.

No doubt, there are pilots which have operated grossly outside the bounds of acceptability, like flying an empty jet into coffin corner, or allowing a child to fly the plane. Such accidents are reported precisely because they blew through every layer of the Swiss cheese model of accident causation, and tragically took lives.

So with all that out of the way, I think we can still try to answer the titular question.

A scheduled passenger airliner tries to get passengers from airport A to airport B. A lot of prep is done in the background to make this happen, organizing the ground crew, flight crew, and backend operations at the airliner HQ. Most of the time, the flight is uneventful and arrives as expected. A few times, there might a go-around, but pilots are trained to not shy away from doing a go-around, and have the reserve fuel to do so.

With any sort of damage on approach, be it from a bird strike or lightning strike, the pilots will have to: 1) secure the plane, usually by initiating a go-around to buy valuable time and get away from the ground, and 2) assess the condition of the airplane and make a plan. In this case, the airplane diverted to a nearby airport, which was probably the backup destination airport.

As mentioned before, WX is fickle, and a storm can easily creep over the airport when the plane is within radio contact. And even if the storm was already over the arrival path, if the indications are still suitable for landing – eg low crosswind, no tailwind, no predicted windshears, no prior pilot reports of landing troubles – then the pilots will have discretion to continue their approach.

For a healthy safety culture, the airliner’s own procedures have to place the pilots as the ultimate decision-makers once a flight is underway, and so while it’s unfortunate that damage occurred unexpectedly, nothing from the minimal available information suggests this amounts to a systemic or procedural error, nor wilful malfeasance.

The fact that the airliner returned to service days later means this might simply be slightly more than mundane happenings. Though it would be prudent to keep an eye out for a future report from the safety regulator which would may have recommendations for updating training or to the manufacturer to address a systemic fault. But sometimes final reports have nothing to recommend (rare, but it happens).

Congrats on the acquisition!

DL380 G9

Does this machine have its iLO license? If so, you’re in for a treat, if you’ve never used IPMI or similar out-of-band server management. Starting as a glorified KVM, it then has full power control authority (power on/off, soft reset, hard reset), either a separate or shared Ethernet connection, virtual CD and USB, SNMP reporting, and other whiz-bang features. Used correctly, you might never have to physically touch the machine after installation, except for parts replacement.

What is your go-to place to source drive caddies or additional bays if needed?

When my Dell m1000e was missing two caddies, I thought about buying a few spares on eBay. But ultimately, I just 3d printed a few and that worked fine.

Finally, server racks are absurdly expensive of course. Any suggestions on DIY’s for a rack would be appreciated.

I built my rack using rails from Penn-Elcom, as I had a very narrow space I wanted to fit my machines. Building an open-frame 4-post rack is almost like putting a Lego set together, but you will have to take care to make sure it doesn’t become a parallelogram. That is, don’t impart a sideways load.

Above all, resist the urge to get by with a two-post rack. This will almost certainly end in misery, considering that enterprise servers are not lightweight.

Wireless water, coming right up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_QfX0SYCE8

In all seriousness, not all particulate sticks to water vapor consistently, sometimes if said particulate is non-polar – the lipid envelope of one SARS-CoV2 comes to mind. It would be more effective to clean the air using a furnace filter taped to a box fan, and it’s only up from there: electrostatic filters or actual air cleaners with a filter.

That said, some console humidifiers push air through essentially a large sponge, and that can already be effective at trapping larger particulate, although not effective for tiny virus-sized particles.

If water vapor was the only thing airborne, then this would be mostly plausible. But the reality in any typical environment is for small particles of dust, soot, microplastics, VOCs, etc to be in the air, in addition to the usual suspects of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc. Some of those will increase the conductance of water, when condensed upon a cool surface. Think of water vapor as a lint filter that floats around the room until it lands on something.

But even in a hermetically sealed environment with only the typical atmospheric mix of oxygen and nitrogen and other trace elemental gases, and then water vapor, there’s still a problem. Air has a conductivity – measured in Siemens, the inverted unit of Ohms which is resistance – of 3-8 x 10^-15, meaning it will not conduct much at all. But compared to condensation upon a PCB in this sealed environment, DI water has a conductance of 5.5 x 10^-6. That is 1,000,000,000x times more conductive, although it’s still a tiny amount.

The reality is that all circuits and electronics leak small currents here and there, even through the air or through their PCB substrates. But the sum total of these leakage and creepage currents will be negligible in all but high-voltage circuits. Though that’s only under the rated environmental conditions.

When air is fully saturated at 100% humidity, some of those currents become noticeable. And for high-voltage switchgear, it can become an issue very quickly. But outright water on most circuits would be disastrous due to arcing or shorting or both, even for low voltage things.

I was originally going to comment about whether such 7-inch wide tires are necessary, but then I saw something in the promo pictures that needs further explanation.

If I’m looking at things correctly, this trike has a 200 mm disc rotor in the front and a single 200 mm rotor for the rear axle. And this trike is rated for 227 kg (500 lbs). Uh, that sounds insufficient for stopping from a top speed of 20 MPH (32 kph) with motor assist, and even worse if heading downhill.

At the very least, with such a high weight rating, this should at least be using a 220 mm rotor on the rear. Or even better, two of them for the rear axle; the geometry of this trike should not lift the rear under heavy deceleration, so more brake force should be provisioned where the weight is.

That this is a trike brings to mind a worrisome scenario: a heavily-loaded runaway trike heading down a hill, one that – unlike a two-wheeler – won’t stop by falling over. Does its rider jump off to save themself, but in turn must let go of the service brakes and doom anyone ahead? Or remain in the saddle to witness Newton’s Third Law in action?

In a lot of ways, Florida’s open-access to government information is refreshing, when entities in other states are more belligerent and less cooperating to journalists and citizens alike. That said, given that being arrested – but not charged – carries a stigma in the USA, both culturally and systemically (eg job applications), there would be good reason to withhold the names of arrested people. This is the norm for minors, precisely because we don’t want to ruin their lives unless and until found culpable. For adults, the equation could be modified so that they’re unnamed until formally charged, at which point they’ll have their day in open court to contest the charge. Whereas arrests are rarely contested for expungement.

But still, Florida’s policy currently serves a very important purpose: figuring out where someone is, once they’ve been arrested. The very power of the government to seize someone means it’s crucial to have oversight of when the government takes custody of someone. But we don’t necessarily need to know that they’ve been charged, just that we need to know which jail/facility they’re in.

To that end, if Florida and other states wanted to protect people from the stigma of (potentially wrongful) arrest, but also prevent the lawless disappearing of people to secret jails, then the solution is two-fold: 1) arrest announcements cannot identify individuals until formally charged, and 2) whenever the state or municipality has custody of someone for any reason, this must be reflected in real-time (eg online) but with no info about the reason for custody, and also updated once no longer in custody.

This allows relatives to find where someone is, the same way as calling local hospitals if someone might have had a medical emergency. We’ve already seen bad-faith handling of detained people at the federal level, where defendants are shuffled from New York to Louisiana via Vermont, to prevent lawyers and family from even filing court papers on their behalf, since those have to be filed with the court where someone physically is.

In an urban core, there simply shouldn’t be any roads (ie corridors for connectivity) that need to be crossed by pedestrians or bicyclists. Instead, the densest urban areas would have only streets (ie corridors for access) with human-scale and human-speed traffic, and public transport of course. Delivery and garbage trucks would operate off-peak at night, a la New York City

If there are to be roads, they need to be fully separated, with automobiles going above or below grade. After all, cars can climb grades with ease, hence why trenched or viaduct highways make more sense than those obnoxious, towering, loud, narrow, fenced-off so-called pedestrian overpasses.

Outside of the urban core, where roads should be, there’s a better case for level crossing of pedestrian and bikes. To which point, the leading designs would be ones where so-called beg buttons are eliminated: the UK already demonstrates how automatic pedestrian and cyclist sensors work, and they have the benefit of also detecting if they finish crossing early; no need to hold road traffic longer than necessary. The Dutch have their own designs for detecting and yielding a crossing in advance of approaching cyclists.

Supposing that any change did materialize, it is a bedrock principle of legal procedure to not change substantially just because the outcomes have noticeable changed. That is to say, if there was anything like a sudden drop in conviction rates, it would be improper for the judges, appellate justices, and defense and prosecuting attorneys to do anything different than what they would have done prior. That’s kinda the point of having a procedure: to follow it and see what happens, accepting the result of turning the cogwheels.

The path to making such changes would have to be done legislatively, since – at least in the USA/California – that’s how changes to the law and civil/criminal procedure are made. Sure, entities like the Judicial Council of California would be making recommendations, but it’s on the Legislature to evaluate the problem and implement any necessary changes.

Law without procedure would just be decrees, wayward and unprincipled.

A financial incentive is only effective if the finances of an endeavor are the primary reason why fewer people chose to embark. As the article explains, European countries tend to have fewer barriers to bicycling, and so a financial incentive to commute by bike is a perfectly logical next step in encouraging bicycle uptake.

But North America has huge hurdles to bicycling, not least including: sprawling suburbs, dangerous motorists, poor bicycle infrastructure and maintenance, and few practical routes. So a financial incentive to bike to work doesn’t really fix any of those

To the article’s credit, they did recommend this in tandem with fully-funded bike infrastructure. But it’s worth focusing on where incentives genuinely work in North America: ebike purchase rebates.

Ebikes are undisputably getting more Americans and Canadians into a bike saddle, because they enable riders that might have physical limitations, or might be trapped in circuitous suburbs that historically favored the range of automobiles. But while ebike prices have come down, they’re still fairly high for most people. And so a purchase incentive is exactly the right solution to solve that, not only getting more bikes to more people, but also increasing the demand and bringing economies of scales. This also applies to support and maintenance, as more bikes means more shops, more technicians, and more parts networks. And more riders will need more accommodations, like parking, wayfinding, training, and community resources.

Purchase incentives for ebikes are an excellent way to build a local economy around sustainable mobility. After all, how can bike maintenance or trail building be outsourced? The riding of bicycles and its benefits will always be personal and/or local, and that’s been proven over nearly 200 years.

There’s a lot to unpack here. Might I suggest you make a new post in this community for this solar-powered ebike+trailer endeavor? That’ll also garner more input than as a comment on a post about a commercially-available ebike.

Regarding bike racks, I posted this a while ago, with examples of good and bad bike racks: https://sh.itjust.works/post/9741359

better bike racks do exist, as many destinations have the older, terrible styles that were barely usable. Where you can, advocate for better bike racks and everyone will benefit!

Ngl, the promo pics are very appealing. But unlike the Volonaut Airbike, the rest of us are anchored to the ground, and to some semblance of practicality, even if we might dream for the skies.

The promo video seems to show it flying at a height higher than what ground-effect vehicles would normally use, which implies that its purported jet motor produces enough thrust to lift the machine and its rider. The question then becomes one of excess power, which is what’s necessary to accelerate a flying machine upwards or forwards. In this application where there are no major flight surfaces visible, it may also dictate the deceleration rate. Helicopters have a comparable slowing-down mechanism, essentially tilting back so a component of the rotor’s lift is opposite the direction of travel.

As a recreational vehicle, this would be great fun. But in traffic, well, why would you ride this in traffic? There would be little benefit from hovering just above a highway just to be caught in the same congestion as road traffic. Flying 5 meters above the surface would avoid even the tallest Interstate-legal trucks in the USA, but overpasses and gantries present obstacles. But any higher than that would implicate airspace regulations. For simplicity sake, I’ll assume this machine would not fall under road traffic rules, but there’s a colorable debate that hovering within the typical space of a road would constitute a road-going vehicle, even if no part touches the ground.

In the USA, there does exist Class G airspace, which is uncontrolled by ATC and exists where no other class of airspace has applied. Typically, Class G will exist directly below some Class E airspace, which begins at 700 or 1200 ft above the ground (aka AGL). But sometimes it will start at the ground, meaning there can’t be any Class G below. This is the airspace that most people would reasonably use for ground-based activities, like flying kites or badminton.

However, with regards to aircraft registration, the closest category might be Part 103 Ultralights, which generally are low-power, low-weight machines which don’t require a pilot certificate. IMO, ultralights are awesome and can take any form including fixed-wing craft, rotorcraft, seaplanes, and even paramotors. But this machine can’t qualify for that, purely because ultralights require a max airspeed no higher than 55 knots. But the specs say this can do 200 km/h (108 knots) ground speed, which is way too fast.

I’m not even going to address the safety of doing 100+ knots at only 700 or 1200 ft above the ground. But suffice to say that the regulatory structure is not prepared for this machine’s mass-market appeal. Then again, we said that about ebikes in the early 2010s and now look at them: a multi-billion dollar industry that has overtaken acoustic bikes in some markets.

It’s very cool, no doubt. And it does seem to qualify as micro mobility. But I want to make sure no one views this as some sort of game changer for city-dwellers, where the bicycle and public transit will continue reigning supreme.

The link points to an episode of a podcast, but the headline topic about 32 in wheels is also available in text form.

And just to get it out of the way, in ISO/ETRTO parlance, such a wheel/rim would be described as 686 mm rim diameter, which is the second number necessary to match a wheel to a tire.

The article discussed the upcoming prospect of 686 mm mountain-bike wheels, noting the benefits of aesthetics for taller riders and roll-over capabilities on rough terrain, among others. But I’ve commented before about how the bicycle is a living record of technological advances and the benefits of the hub-spoke wheel, so I have to view the suggestion of a future with 686 mm wheels in that context.

Compared with 29ers (626 mm rim diameter), the obvious change is a larger diameter. This increases the hub’s ground clearance but also means the trailing edge of the front wheel swings a wider arc when turning. Forks necessarily have to be built taller to accommodate, and may require reinforcing to achieve the same flexural strength. Rake angles might have to be adjusted to avoid foot-wheel contact, or the wheelbase elongated.

For the wheel itself, increasing the diameter linearly increases the material needed for the rim, at a rate of pi. But if the spoke count remains the same, more material is needed to keep the same strength, as there’s more distance between spoke holes. A wider diameter also changes the spoke angle, which either reduces sideways strength – less relevant for road bikes but somewhat relevant for mountain bikes that will slide the back wheel – or needs a wider hub, which adds weight and implicates the frame design.

As with all engineering, these changes can be made, but to what end? What paramount objective would make all these changes worthwhile in the MTB space?

At this time, the article says that only the tire was showcased, and that Trek is investigating how it might be employed in new bikes. And I’m not going to unduly poo-poo the idea at this stage, but it’s not immediately clear that the benefits will be monumental. But if there are smaller benefits, I’m all ears. After all, Cannondale does their single-fork design and while they’re the only one doing it, that doesn’t disqualify its tangible benefits. Maybe 686 wheels will find a niche.

That said, I’m also not totally married to the idea that 29ers/626mm is the ideal size either, although I do think it’s sufficient for common use-cases. And all my bikes are uniform in using 626 mm wheels. That it is also a common tube size for road and MTB is just icing on the implementation cake.

Here in California, the term “dirt bike” essentially exclusively means off-street recreational vehicle. Some road-legal motorbikes will draw heavy inspiration (eg dual-sports like the DR650) or truly are dirt bikes with added equipment to make them legal, but these would be called motorcycles or motorbikes and registered accordingly.

Being able to ride one’s own two-wheeler from home to a vehicle recreational area in California is the domain of dual-sport motorbikes or certain smaller electric dirt bikes that are eligible for moped registration, both options requiring some level of license.

In Australia, are those rules consistent between all the states? I’m sure different US States regulate dirt bikes differently too, but it’s not something I’ve ever looked into in detail.

If you asked me a few years ago, I would have put all the non-electric motorized bikes right below street-legal motorcycles. But then I chatted with family friends who all rode dirt bikes in their youth and have dirt bikes for their children. And I’m now fairly convinced that development of off-road handling of motorized two-wheelers is a separate, valuable skill.

If it’s just a matter of operating a bike with a throttle, class 2 ebikes can teach that, at a lower cost point while operating legally on-street and at a fairly sane speed of 20 MPH (32 km/h).

But class 3 ebikes and dirt bikes are different animals. The latter is only off-road, but some/many class 3 ebikes can be on- or off-road. In the latter case, dirt bikes are purpose-built rugged and can really be thrown around. But on-road, ebikes require substantial attention to road conditions, because while the max speed is 27 MPH (45 km/h), that’s on the edge of what can safely be ridden on USA bike lanes or shoulders, which aren’t as well-maintained as auto lanes.

I’d also consider downhill MTB as a comparable activity to dirt bikes, since split-second terrain handling is valuable for riding in road conditions too.

But what I outlined was just one possible example route, and like all great human endeavors, there are multiple ways to get to the same end.