In our town, we’re having a growing problem with e-bikes on the trails. Some are legitimate bicycles with electric assist. Others are basically electric motorcycles masquerading as bikes, capable of 30 mph or more. Packs of kids ride them hard through paseos crowded with walkers, runners, older cyclists, moms with strollers and little kids. Some ride responsibly. Some, as we’ve all learned, terrorize our trails. 

The debate usually turns immediately toward enforcement. More rules. More restrictions. More police presence. Maybe complete bans. 

I think I understand these e-biker-kids. The deeper issue has less to do with the machines themselves and more to do with something closer to home. 

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Southern California still felt like one giant playground for children. Ours was a typical postwar middle- and lower-middle-class neighborhood packed with kids. Two parents. Two to four children. One car, maybe two. Increasingly, both parents worked. 

By today’s standards, we were almost shockingly unsupervised. 

After school and during summers, kids simply disappeared into the neighborhood for hours at a time. We rode bikes everywhere. Built forts. Played baseball in the street. Wandered flood channels and climbed over the mountains of Chatsworth Park. Parents often had only a vague idea where we were until dinner. 

And honestly, much of it was wonderful. 

But childhood freedom has a shadow side. 

When I was around 12 or 13, the culture........

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