🚨 EU Threat to Biking Culture: What the New ELV Directive Means for Riders, Restorers & Collectors

If you ride, restore, or collect motorcycles, the EU’s new End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) proposal could affect you. Here’s what you need to know—and why the biking community needs to act now.

⚙️ What’s Happening?

The European Commission is quietly advancing major updates to its End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive. The goal? Boost recycling targets, tighten electric battery disposal rules, and push more responsibility onto manufacturers through Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).

Sounds green, right? Sure—until you look closer.

The directive was designed for the car industry. But motorcycles are being lumped in without consideration for how different—and sustainable—our world already is.

🏍️ Motorcycles Aren’t the Problem

Motorcycles are inherently more efficient than cars. They:

• Use less metal (meaning less mining)

• Contain less plastic (lower emissions)

• Require significantly less paint (which, when mishandled, is a major pollutant)

Plus, the bike scene is already leading the way in sustainability. A FEMA-cited Nordic study found over 60% of motorcycle parts are reused, compared to just 15% in the car world.

Bikes are repaired, restored, and reimagined—often far beyond their original lifespan. That’s not waste. That’s a model of sustainability.

🧱 Red Tape vs Real Riders

Here’s the danger: under the proposed changes, motorcycles deemed “irreparable” could be forced to be scrapped, regardless of:

• Cultural or historical value

• Restoration progress

• Collector significance

• Age (even bikes over 30 years old aren’t automatically protected)

Imagine that: a barn-find classic project or half-restored Ducati getting crushed just because it’s incomplete or not roadworthy yet.

This is more than bureaucracy—it’s a threat to our culture, heritage, and community values.

⚠️ Who Does This Affect?

• Independent workshops

• Backyard builders

• Classic collectors

• Hobbyists & restorers

• Parts traders & breakers

In short—us. The heart and soul of the biking world.

🛡️ What FEMA Is Fighting For

The Federation of European Motorcyclists’ Associations (FEMA) is sounding the alarm. They’re calling for common-sense changes to the ELV proposal, including:

• Excluding motorcycles entirely from the new ELV directive

• Legal protections for hobby bikes, classics, and vintage projects

• A proper definition of what “end of life” actually means

• Freedom to buy, sell, and export used parts for restorations

• Allowing bike owners—not the government—to decide when a bike’s life ends

🤨 Let’s Get Real: How Would This Even Work?

Here’s the part that makes many of us laugh—if it weren’t so serious.

How do they plan to police this?

Are officials going to start raiding garages, bike sheds, and lock-ups across Europe? Handing out fines for keeping a non-roadworthy project? Good luck with that.

Governments can’t even fix the potholes that swallow our bikes. Yet they want to regulate what we can restore or collect in our own time?

Sounds like a backdoor push to move everyone toward electric bikes, doesn’t it? (Sarcasm fully intended… sort of.)

🧍‍♀️ Why This Matters to Grassroots Biking

Grassroots biking isn’t just about the ride—it’s about:

• Self-reliance

• Sustainable culture

• Community ingenuity

• Preserving biking heritage

This directive, if passed unchallenged, risks criminalising the very people who keep biking alive—not the corporate manufacturers, but you and me.

✅ What You Can Do

Right Now

1. Share this article across your biking networks

2. Contact your MEP or government minister—FEMA has templates to help

3. Talk about it at your club, workshop, ride-outs, and events

4. Stay informed—follow FEMA and Bikers Hangout for updates

🚦 Final Thoughts

No one’s against progress. But folding motorcycles into car-based legislation is like forcing a square peg into a round hole.

This isn’t green policy—it’s regulatory overkill.

We ride because we love the freedom. We restore because we love the history. And we wrench because we respect sustainability far more than many policymakers ever could.

Let’s not allow that legacy to be crushed by a tick-box exercise in Brussels.

🗣️ Let bikers decide when their bikes reach their end—not a regulation written behind a desk.