431–440 of 618 posts
Coincidentally, I bought a 12v car horn yesterday with the intent of wiring it into my ebike's power supply with a little button on my handlebars. Not because of other cyclists or pedestrians wearing (anc) headphones but because modern cars are so heavily sound-proofed they don't hear a bicycle bell anymore. A recent incident with an inattentive taxi driver in a brand new EV nearly flattening me prompted me to want t…
Coincidentally, I bought a 12v car horn yesterday with the intent of wiring it into my ebike's power supply with a little button on my handlebars. Not because of other cyclists or pedestrians wearing (anc) headphones but because modern cars are so heavily sound-proofed they don't hear a bicycle bell anymore. A recent incident with an inattentive taxi driver in a brand new EV nearly flattening me prompted me to want t…
People have used drills+pumps to drive similar hand-held horns at football games so it is doable.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKgg5iCw_c
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enF0m6J7g2w [Tiny car with train horn]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A horn or bell is mostly for telling other people "hey I'm here, stay out of my way and dont suddenly cross into my path" My opinion as a cyclist is that I should basically only be using my bell on pedestrians when the pedestrians are wandering onto the bike lane. If im cycling through a shared space, I find it extremely rude to ring the bell, because it feels like I'm telling people to get out of my way, but they ha…
>My opinion as a cyclist is that I should basically only be using my bell on pedestrians when the pedestrians are wandering onto the bike lane. If im cycling through a shared space, I find it extremely rude to ring the bell, because it feels like I'm telling people to get out of my way, but they have just as much right to a shared path as I do. The culture around this varies a lot. I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Virtua…
As far as the pedestrian's safety is concerned what matters is either giving them a wide berth or slowing right down when passing.
Whether on a bike or not I'm sick of all the modern world's beeping and ringing and buzzing and blaring and if I'm wearing noise cancelling headphones that means I don't want to hear it. Don't tell you're being annoying for my own good because you aren't.
[flagged]
this was not really an issue before food delivery apps came into fashion btw. kids up until certain age can pretty much in all countries ride bike legally on sidewalk, are there any countries where 8yo can't ride bike on sidewalk?
I'm very sceptical of their claims that ~780Hz is in some way special, especially the way they represent it graphically. Playing a frequency sweep while wearing WH-1000XM3 headphones, I don't notice any particular drop-off there. Near where I live, heavy goods vehicles are fitted with reversing indicators that make a "cshh cshh cshh" sound i.e. pulsed white-noise. White noise like that is the hardest for ANC to cance…
(The amount of innovation in anti-anti-scraping that's resulted from "sneaker bots" - automated scalping of limited-edition shoe releases - is astounding, and somewhat relevant here in how an environment can become adversarial in ways that impact broad ecosystems. I suppose the equivalent here would be environmental ads that seek to penetrate noise-cancellation in a similar way.)
I suppose, though, that all this is good news for a company that wants to turn your bicycle bell into a subscription product!
I'm very sceptical of their claims that ~780Hz is in some way special, especially the way they represent it graphically. Playing a frequency sweep while wearing WH-1000XM3 headphones, I don't notice any particular drop-off there. Near where I live, heavy goods vehicles are fitted with reversing indicators that make a "cshh cshh cshh" sound i.e. pulsed white-noise. White noise like that is the hardest for ANC to cance…
The construction site next door is using those vehicles, and they're also a lot more pleasant throughout the day. It's easier to tune out white noise than beeping. The first cshh is a little louder than the others, which is a nice design touch.
On a more serious note: the loud beeping backup alarms were DESIGNED to be annoying and difficult to miss. I would not be surprised in the least if a study showed these "less annoying" backup alarms correlating to a higher number of children being run over by reversing vehicles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get your point about not wanting to reduce speed, but it's worth considering how the law might react in a worse-case scenario. Here in the UK, there was an infamous case of Charlie Alliston who ended up getting a ridiculous 18 months prison sentence after colliding with a pedestrian who hit her head and subsequently died. He was riding a "fixie" without a front brake and was cycling at around 18mph through some gre…
I don't know, the sentence doesn't sound ridiculous if you're cycliing at 18mph towards someone, without a front brake, and your precaution is "it's OK, I can guess which way they're going to go".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A horn or bell is mostly for telling other people "hey I'm here, stay out of my way and dont suddenly cross into my path" My opinion as a cyclist is that I should basically only be using my bell on pedestrians when the pedestrians are wandering onto the bike lane. If im cycling through a shared space, I find it extremely rude to ring the bell, because it feels like I'm telling people to get out of my way, but they ha…
>My opinion as a cyclist is that I should basically only be using my bell on pedestrians when the pedestrians are wandering onto the bike lane. If im cycling through a shared space, I find it extremely rude to ring the bell, because it feels like I'm telling people to get out of my way, but they have just as much right to a shared path as I do. The culture around this varies a lot. I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Virtua…
Now that I moved to the country with a comprehensive rails-to-trail network, I thank all the cyclists that use the bell to let me know they're coming up behind me. What really irks me is the dudes going 30+mph silently coming up behind me, passing less than 2' from my dog (who is at my side) when there's PLENTY of room to give me space. No, we can't hear them coming all the time. Yes, it's startling, rude, and dangerous for all of us.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, I hate it when I'm on my bike on a bike path, and someone walks their dog, leash fully extended across the bike path, they are looking down on their phone and wearing headphones. Absolute selfishness.
On bike paths, totally agree with you. On shared paths, nobody owes you that speed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>My opinion as a cyclist is that I should basically only be using my bell on pedestrians when the pedestrians are wandering onto the bike lane. If im cycling through a shared space, I find it extremely rude to ring the bell, because it feels like I'm telling people to get out of my way, but they have just as much right to a shared path as I do. The culture around this varies a lot. I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Virtua…
I've always wanted two horns in my car: one that toots with a smile and a tip of the hat, and one that heralds your pending demise. It sounds like Australia cycle bell culture does that with short vs. long bell ding-a-lings. Which is kind of how it has worked with cars, except I find that more and more cars have a style of horn that's hard to control with the necessary precision. Maybe this is Canadian culture but I…
As an experiment, I've found that you can reliably detect the presence of crummy horn control by trying to pulse the horn for the shortest amount of time possible. The shorter my push on the horn button gets, the more likely it is that the timing will feel wrong somehow, or the horn doesn't even sound at all.
I've definitely tried friendly beeps at friends or neighbors and it came out sounding like an angry honk.