The 40-year-old was stopped on Monday while riding along a road in the central city of Linköping, with the police car which apprehended him having to accelerate to 98kmh to catch up.
“It was life-threatening,” Björn Goding from the local police told Linköping News. “The bicycle probably didn’t have a frame built for such speed, and the brakes didn’t work either.”
The bicycle had two power modes, 1KW and 4KW, according to the local daily, which would put it well beyond the permitted limits of an electric bicycle.
According to Swedish vehicle regulations an electric bicycle should run on a maximum of 250w, and have a maximum speed of 25kmh.
An electric light motorcycle, however, is permitted to have up to 11kw of power under Swedish law, but must be registered as such in order to be driven on Swedish roads, which this vehicle was not.
The man is facing potential charges of both “serious illegal” and “careless” driving.
He reportedly bought the vehicle on the Blocket website, a popular classifieds site in Sweden.
At the time of publication, Blocket had several high-powered e-bikes for sale with similar specifications to the one the man was riding, but they were recommended for off-road use only.
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