Electric bikes are coming to North America. And best not call them motorcycles.

After pretty much taking over Asia and sweeping through Europe, the electric bike scene is zooming for the U.S., promising a quiet revolution that could reduce reliance on cars, grow cycling opportunities for an aging demographic, protect air quality, provide exercise and change the nature of urban travel.

But the electrified-bike industry faces many hurdles in the car-loving U.S. — most of them rooted in lingering unfamiliarity, evidenced by a patchwork of laws that can treat the sparky rides like motorcycles, and an urban road system designed more for motors than muscles. That’s changing, especially in Colorado, where advocates are lobbying for an overhaul of state access laws hoping, among other things, to entice major players in an industry that expects almost $16 billion in global sales this year and close to $24 billion in 2025.

Office of Outdoor Recreation Industry chief Luis Benitez — a champion of e-bikes — has been talking with several e-bike companies interested in settling in Colorado. Watch for state legislation this winter, he said, that would allow increased access on urban trails for two-wheelers with pedal assist. This is the fastest growing category of e-bike, giving an electrified bump to riders as they pedal, but typically never faster than 20 mph. In Colorado, those low-powered e-bikes are allowed on trails only if local governments approve. And few do.

“These companies want to have a home, and they want to be based in an iconic location, but as one CEO said to me, ‘Why would I choose to move my company to a place where there isn’t access?’” Benitez said. “The overall upside is we would be embracing a multi-billion dollar segment of the industry that hasn’t come to the USA in a very impactful way yet, and its looking for a home. Colorado could and should lead the way.”

While everyone seems to recognize electric bikes as a blessing for urban commuters — no need for a shower when you get to work, less car traffic — consensus ends where pavement turns to dirt.

Pedal-assisted electric mountain bikes are surging in the e-bike world, as both emerging electric bike companies and traditional mountain bike makers, like Giant, Scott, Trek, Felt and Specialized, develop knobby-tired, electric-powered rides. The new e-mountain bikes boast all the fancy components of a high-end mountain bike, with a battery and motor weighing as little as 8 pounds tucked into the frame.

The argument over electric access on non-motorized singletrack is passionate, especially as a growing group of mountain bikers ramp up a campaign to expand fat-tired access to trails in wilderness areas. Purists, including an online columnist who called e-mountain bikes “the spawn of Satan,” argue that motors do not belong on non-motorized trails, even if those tiny motors require pedaling and top speeds are limited.

The influential International Mountain Bicycling Association welcomes e-mountain bikes to the two-wheeled tribe — but only where motorized access is already allowed. Last fall IMBA joined the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association and People for Bikes in a scientific study looking at the impact of e-mountain bikes on trails. That study showed the difference between e-mountain bikes and traditional mountain bikes is negligible and e-mountain bikes have a much smaller impact than motorcycles. After the study, IMBA said e-mountain bikes are “substantially different from other motorized uses and may warrant a separate category and new management strategies.”

Benitez, who thinks large-scale with nearly every endeavor, sees opportunities in including the motorized community in the e-bike access discussion. Motorized users are adept at assessing themselves for impacts and access, happily paying for stickers and licensing with the knowledge that their money supports their trails.

Getting mountain bikers, motorized users and the state’s already-progressive federal land managers to the table to talk e-bikes, and public-private partnerships and potential fees to help those budget-strapped land managers, Benitez said, “would be huge.”

“The first state that embraces this segment of the bike industry and embraces the idea of access and fee structures, they will be the leaders in this whole process,” he said. “This is coming and Colorado could be the first adopter at the state level.”

Federal land managers with the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management consider all electric bikes motorized, so they are banned on trails open to only cyclists, hikers and horseback riders. That means ski resorts on federal land — almost of them in Colorado — have to wait for a shift in federal lands travel management policy before embracing the e-mountain bike industry’s dream of resorts offering fleets of electric-powered bikes to summer visitors. (Not to mention most resorts would be loath to offers toys that would eliminate the need to buy a lift ticket.)

The state, however, is taking a different approach.

Colorado was ahead of the e-bike curve in 2009 when lawmakers passed rules that allowed low-powered electrical assisted bikes — those limited to 750 watts, or about one horsepower, and 20 mph — in bike lanes and on streets without the license, registration and insurance that motorcycles, scooters and mopeds are required to carry.

But the lawmakers allowed local municipalities to opt-in to allowing e-bikes on paved bike trails. Cities like Boulder have embraced e-bikes. Many more cities have not. This means e-bike commuters riding between, say, Boulder and Denver on the new U.S. 36 Bikeway would have to turn off the pedal-assist as the trail passes through more than a half-dozen municipalities.

“That’s an issue for getting people to use them on a practical level,” said Alex Logemann, who reviews bike laws and policies for the People for Bikes advocacy group that is lobbying state lawmakers for more laws more friendly to e-bikes.

People for Bikes has crafted model legislation that essentially allows e-bikes to go wherever regular city bikes and commuter bikes can go. California, Tennessee and Utah have passed that legislation. In California, bike advocates even are pushing for legislation that would allow for rebates up to $1,000 for e-bikes and $500 for traditional bikes.

“We would love to keep that momentum rolling,” said Logemann, who described Colorado e-bike laws as “pretty decent” because e-bikes are not classified as motorized, as they are in about 18 other states.

“Something we would like to see in Colorado,” Logemann said, “is take the lowest speed e-bikes and allow them on those bike paths so people can use them for commuting.”

E-bike companies have divided their electric rides into three categories: Category 1, the fastest growing, is pedal assist; Category 2 includes bikes with a little more power and a throttle, a feature that seems to be fading with the explosion of pedal-assist; and Category 3, higher-powered rides that are essentially electric mopeds.

Colorado’s laws allow those first two low-powered categories to use bike lanes and city streets, if local governments say it’s OK. That differentiation gives the state’s trail managers more opportunity to craft access rules for e-bikes on all types of paths, paved and dirt, said Colorado Parks & Wildlife program manager Tom Morrissey, who oversees the state’s recreational trails committee. That committee is mulling policy guidelines that would help guides lawmakers in approving low-powered e-bikes on greenways and paved bike paths, and maybe even pedal-assist e-bikes on state singletrack.

“I think there is potential for Category 1 to access trails in Colorado,” Morrissey said. “Category 2 might also need a policy boost in terms of allowing them multimodal transportation routes built by the Colorado Department of Transportation. I think that would be a tremendous boost for commuting.”

E-bike companies are making widely varying fleets of commuting bikes, including innovative cargo bikes outfitted to haul kids and groceries.

Bicycle Colorado executive director Dan Grunig thinks those commuter e-bikes could help an urban family move to one car from two.

“I see them replacing car trips, not bike trips,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting to get more people out of cars.”

At the 2016 E-Bike Expo stop at the Colorado Mills mall in June, hundreds of people tested e-bikes, moving unnaturally quickly across the parking lot. It was supposed to be the sixth and final stop of the first-ever expo, but surging interest from consumers and bike makers prodded the addition of stops in Seattle, Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Pete Prebus, president of the electricbikereport.com, a website that spreads the word on e-bikes, and the chief marketing officer for the company behind the expo, said the arrival of large companies like Yamaha, Bosch, Panasonic and Samsung into the e-bike world has the potential to super-charge the U.S. bike industry.

The traditional U.S. bike industry has hovered around $6 billion in sales since 2003. Adding e-bikes grows the market with people who maybe wouldn’t be shopping for a traditional bike. North American e-bike sales are expected to reach about 152,000 in 2016, according to research firm Navigant Research. That’s a fraction of the 33 million sold in Asia or the 1.6 million expected in Western Europe. But it reveals the U.S. are fertile ground for the e-bike revolution underway abroad.

“Europe is leading the charge,” Prebus said, intending the pun. “This is something the bike industry needs.”

E-bike buyers typically are older than buyers of traditional bikes. With high-end e-bikes running $5,000 or more, they also are wealthier. These new buyers want to get out and experience the outdoors like everyone else, said Prebus, who says angry traditional mountain bikers are missing the benefits of e-bikes.

“We need to focus on where these bikes can go, not where they can’t. We are getting more people on two wheels and getting more people who are seeing the world through the eyes of a cyclist,” he said. “We are creating more advocates for bike lanes and commuting on bike and bringing kids to school on bikes. I’m sure we will see more electric bike riders transitioning into traditional cycling.”

Doug Crandall, who sometimes bikes 11 miles from home in Fort Morgan to work in Brush, has been eyeing e-bikes online for a while. He was hooked by his first test ride, during the expo.

“Now I’m getting pretty serious about buying one,” Crandall said. “It would be so nice to ride in and not worry about showering. If I had one, I would definitely be riding more.”