Centennial’s Class 3 Rule Is Already in Effect. The Fine Is Not a Number

Centennial, Colorado, already adopted this. It is not a weekend vote. The city’s own page, published 20 August 2026, says the council adopted Ordinance 2026-O-13, effective immediately. Class 3 e-bikes and electric motorcycles are prohibited on sidewalks and trails. They may be operated on city streets under the traffic laws that apply. The page also lists a minimum age of 16 to operate an electric motorcycle, licence and registration and insurance “as applicable,” a helmet for riders under 18, a restriction on modifying a standard e-bike to exceed the manufacturer’s designed or specified speed, and enforcement that may include fines, parental liability, and impoundment. It does not print a dollar amount. The Denver Gazette’s story of the same ordinance adds the definition and a designation exception the city page does not use. Both stay.

The city page is a flat ban. The Gazette has an unless

Read the sign that is posted, and read which sentence you are using. The city page does not say “unless designated.” It says Class 3 e-bikes and electric motorcycles are prohibited on sidewalks and trails. The Gazette says Class 3 is prohibited on those paths unless the route is specifically designated, and that some parks and trails are built for Class 3 and can continue. This desk will not turn the Gazette’s unless into the city’s rule, and it will not delete the unless from the Gazette. A rider who needs the exception needs the designation in writing. A story that says some trails can qualify is not itself the designation.

The watt line is the Gazette’s, not a sentence on the city page this desk read. No functional pedals, or more than 750 watts, or the ability to go faster than 28 mph on motor power alone. Any one of those is an electric motorcycle in that account. Seven hundred fifty is not “fewer than 750,” and it is not “no more than 750.” More than 750 fails the Gazette’s line. A bike at exactly 750, with pedals, that cannot do 28 on the motor alone, is not inside that “or.” The class chart is the three US classes. Class 3 on that chart is pedal assist up to 28. Centennial’s city page then takes that class off the sidewalk and the trail. California’s new marketing law, SB 1167, is about the word on a sale. It does not open a Centennial path.

Sixteen is the motorcycle age. The helmet line is under 18. The fine is unnamed

Both sources put 16 as the minimum age to operate an electric motorcycle. Neither source, in the lines this desk used, puts 16 on a Class 3 bicycle. The helmet is for riders under 18. Only the Gazette says the helmet has to be DOT-approved. Do not write a DOT rule onto the city page. Fines, parental liability, and impoundment are the enforcement words. There is no $50 and no $100 in either story. Those dollars are a New York proposal on another page, not Centennial. A modified bike that was built to a lower speed and then opened past the manufacturer’s specification is the restriction the city printed. It does not say the motor is legal if you only ride it on the street after the change. The Gazette’s definition would call the opened bike a motorcycle if it can exceed 28 on motor power, or if the motor is over 750 watts.

The city page says the regulations are effective immediately. That sentence is from 20 August 2026, not from this weekend.

No council video was the ordinance. The document is Ordinance 2026-O-13. Class 1 and Class 2 are not the subject of the city’s prohibition sentence, which names Class 3 and electric motorcycles. A natural-surface trail and a sidewalk are both in the city’s “trails and sidewalks” line. If a later map designates a Class 3 route, the Gazette’s unless becomes checkable. Until that map is the city’s, the page the city published is the flat one.