Excessively noisy motorbike exhaust

[Drago]

Spent fifteen years bent over a 120 dB chainsaw.

Kinky!

 

[a.twiddler]

I'm surprised that no one has trundled out the old chestnut that "loud pipes save lives" as some sort of justification. I suspect that is more anecdotal and less researched than, dare I say it, the pros and cons of cycle helmets.

What is probably more true is that loud pipes just annoy the hell out of most non motorcyclists and give bikers a bad name. I well remember blatting about on a Norton Commando in the seventies and enjoying the sound of it. It was pretty fruity sounding as it came from the factory, by no means quiet, but it was a low frequency mellow sound. It sounded great to me. This was also the era of Yamaha and Suzuki 2 stroke racing successes and of course road going expansion chambers, with their ear splitting high frequency crackling sound. What is music to some is just appalling noise to others. Yet the whiff of two stroke exhaust is something I still find very evocative to this day.

I suppose regarding the need to make noise as just a phase some people go through is not much consolation to those who have to suffer it, but it is easy to be judgemental and forget that many of us were there once. We have not sprung fully formed into life as intolerant old gits. We have gone through a process of experience and development to get there.

 

[captain nemo1701]

I'm surprised that no one has trundled out the old chestnut that "loud pipes save lives" as some sort of justification. I suspect that is more anecdotal and less researched than, dare I say it, the pros and cons of cycle helmets.

Actually, someone did.

 

[Drago]

Loud pipes make girls want to have sex with you. Or men if you ride a Harley.

 

[figbat]

On my previous bike I once took the silencer off to give it and the hidden elements of the frame, swingarm etc a good cleaning. Of course, with the exhaust off there was only one inevitable outcome...

View: https://youtu.be/zQY8o1xPE0A

 

[Once a Wheeler]

Electric Harley Davidson.

Only wimps ride ICEs, join the silent majority.

 

[tyred]

Hartley Davidson build electric bikes

I thought their speciality was building engines which run more roughly, less efficiently and more noisily than a 1950s Lister diesel water pump with a cracked injector pipe and knackered big ends.

 

[a.twiddler]

Actually, someone did.

Not in so many words. The phrase "Loud pipes save lives" is a sort of mantra for some. The motorcycley sound is part of the whole experience but I wouldn't expect the fact that one's bike sounds like the arrival of Armageddon to stop someone failing to notice you and trying to occupy the same space simultaneously any more than high viz or daytime lights would.

So many distractions in modern cars, also many vulnerable people about with visual and auditory impairments.

As cyclists, we should be more acutely aware of all this than most.