301–310 of 341 posts
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I too am a motorcyclist (85K miles of sport bike riding, Sunday morning ride to Pt Reyes was a lot of that, current stable is r1200gs and wr250r). I despise loud pipes, just frigging hate them. But I live in deer country (Santa Cruz mountains) and I've hit a deer at speed on the GS (did not wipe out, lifted the front end and had my front tire hit it square in the hind quarters, spun the deer around, I dropped the fro…
I despise overly loud pipes - like, you have to scream loud. But,Ive been riding a bike a lot as well. Way too quiet exhausts (like EU is constantly pushing on us) are dangerous - ive seen it myself - my dad with a louder exhaust passes with no issues and I, silently, get cut off and nearly run off the road by a guy that assumes that mirrors are for pussies. It happened quite a few times already.
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I'm always surprised when people don't realize that large bikes are suppose to be loud so that drivers can hear them coming. It's a necessary evil.
I'm a motorcyclist and I'm downvoting this fallacy. If this were seriously the case then good beginner bikes like the Ninja 250 and Honda CBR250R would be unsafe, especially for new riders. Enjoy your loud pipes if you like (I do on my throaty Aprilia) but don't pretend they give you any safety benefit to balance the annoyance it causes some people.
With the level of acoustic engineering that goes into modern vehicles specifically to block out external noise, combined with radio / in car entertainment, relying on other drivers being able to position you from audio is a bad idea. Now if bikes were to be fitted with cell phone jammers, that I could get on board with.
Many of the comments in this thread follow a similar pattern. They are all essentially derivatives of Goodhart's law. [0] >> Once a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. It's quite useful to have a name - a label - for this sort of behaviour. In this case, the means by which VW optimised for this metric was crafty computer software! A metric is only as good as the cost of the unintended consequence…
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Cars built since MY 1996 are self-diagnosing for most emissions problems. Mandating factory-original parts simply means the auto manufacturers won a major political battle, not that anything effective is being done.
Many of those self-diagnosing features can be defeated by trivial circuits. A 555 timer for a downstream O2 sensor, a 4N4001 diode and a couple resistors for an EGR vacuum sensor hack, and several others. I have had cars in the past that OBD2 reported as operating correctly, that easily passed smog/inspections, that probably weren't operating as the EPA intended.
Chasing a problem like that around is a waste of everyon'e time and money. Environmental regulatory agencies really need to do a better job considering the 90/10 or 80/20 rule (the last 20% of whatever you're optimizing will consume 80% of the resource).
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I'm a motorcyclist and I'm downvoting this fallacy. If this were seriously the case then good beginner bikes like the Ninja 250 and Honda CBR250R would be unsafe, especially for new riders. Enjoy your loud pipes if you like (I do on my throaty Aprilia) but don't pretend they give you any safety benefit to balance the annoyance it causes some people.
TL;DR - I stand by my comment, loud bikes helps people hear you but that doesn't mean you have to be EXTRA LOUD to be cool. I understand the point you are trying to make, and perhaps I wasn't very clear in my off-hand comment. I agree that overly loud bikes are annoying, however, as I stated before, sound is a necessary evil[0]. Do I believe that motorcycles should use straight pipes and increase their sound output?…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a motorcyclist and I'm downvoting this fallacy. If this were seriously the case then good beginner bikes like the Ninja 250 and Honda CBR250R would be unsafe, especially for new riders. Enjoy your loud pipes if you like (I do on my throaty Aprilia) but don't pretend they give you any safety benefit to balance the annoyance it causes some people.
TL;DR - I stand by my comment, loud bikes helps people hear you but that doesn't mean you have to be EXTRA LOUD to be cool. I understand the point you are trying to make, and perhaps I wasn't very clear in my off-hand comment. I agree that overly loud bikes are annoying, however, as I stated before, sound is a necessary evil[0]. Do I believe that motorcycles should use straight pipes and increase their sound output?…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a motorcyclist and I'm downvoting this fallacy. If this were seriously the case then good beginner bikes like the Ninja 250 and Honda CBR250R would be unsafe, especially for new riders. Enjoy your loud pipes if you like (I do on my throaty Aprilia) but don't pretend they give you any safety benefit to balance the annoyance it causes some people.
TL;DR - I stand by my comment, loud bikes helps people hear you but that doesn't mean you have to be EXTRA LOUD to be cool. I understand the point you are trying to make, and perhaps I wasn't very clear in my off-hand comment. I agree that overly loud bikes are annoying, however, as I stated before, sound is a necessary evil[0]. Do I believe that motorcycles should use straight pipes and increase their sound output?…
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Like your spirit (I don't like the loud pipes either) but this is a little unfair. Motorcycling should be part of a more sustainable future. Especially when you consider how many OECD commuters commute in cars alone.
I don't think motorcycles are actually so unsafe that they need to be that loud. But rather than argue about that, I'd rather point out that massive noise pollution isn't a fundamental right, so "we must be that loud to ride" is just saying "we shouldn't ride."
its the cagers that are the problemo, thus the comment
(FWIW, I hate loud exhausts)
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TL;DR - I stand by my comment, loud bikes helps people hear you but that doesn't mean you have to be EXTRA LOUD to be cool. I understand the point you are trying to make, and perhaps I wasn't very clear in my off-hand comment. I agree that overly loud bikes are annoying, however, as I stated before, sound is a necessary evil[0]. Do I believe that motorcycles should use straight pipes and increase their sound output?…
One, decibels are a logarithmic unit. Two, you are comparing factory exhausts on the Harley meant to comply with noise regulations with top of the line aftermarket race exhausts for the Honda (which is probably as loud as you could make the Honda without removing the pipes entirely). They are not anywhere near each other - and the data in [1] really makes that point, I'm not sure how you concluded that most motorcycl…
That's not a good statement. Just because a number is logarithmic does not make sound logarithmic...Here is a video that shows two different exhaust with similar dB output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax6W-V9bsmg
As a side note, opening a can of coke will record 101.5 dB from one meter away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAd2BUB6XqQ
> Two, you are comparing factory exhausts on the Harley meant to comply with noise regulations with top of the line aftermarket race exhausts for the Honda (which is probably as loud as you could make the Honda without removing the pipes entirely). They are not anywhere near each other - and the data in [1] really makes that point,
Honda are subject 1 and 3, Harley are 5 and 6.
Subject 1 - 105 dB A, Subject 3 - 99 dB A.
Subject 5 - 101.8 dB A, Subject 6 - 106.7 dB A.
The two Hondas are not the same one you mentioned in your original post, However, stock exhaust is 72dB at idle and 86dB at half throttle on Honda CBR250R. http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/2013/03/article/2013-honda-crf...