Oh man, this looks cool but the writing took me right out of the announcement. I don't usually notice bad writing, but this prose seems purpler than usual.
The original text is reasonable as Japanese advertising copy, but advertising copy usually shouldn’t be translated. Instead, it should be written anew in each target language, sometimes with different content and graphics.
I worked freelance for twenty years translating Japanese to English, often advertising copy like this. Though I did my best, I was rarely satisfied with the result unless I was able to work closely with the Japanese client and write something original in English that met their needs and was appropriate for the target audience. Most clients didn’t have enough time, money, or awareness of the drawbacks of direct translation to make that possible.
I enjoyed the story behind the bike. I found it engaging and I feel like the photos enhanced the story. As I read through it I was pretty impressed that an article like this, maybe first composed in Japanese, had such a smooth translation into English. I wondered whether it began as an English audience article.
I was amused to find in one of the pictures a misspelled word. I didn't laugh but I did crack a smile. The trash can/ recycle bin in the cartoon encourages the viewer to "Picth In".
Cool bike, great story. I hope they iron out the issues that they find and this bike makes it onto streets everywhere.
I love how the Japanese people in the video linked on one post seem so accustomed to seeing cool stuff like this. I wish the guys at Yamaha all the success.
I'm not so sure, the engines are great but they cheap out on suspensions lately.
I had an MT09 Tracer that was wobbly as f. in curves and on stright lines at high speed. The rear shock was just too loose. Same for the MT07 since 2014.
I've heard a lot of complaints about the wobbly MT09 Tracer at high (>160km/h) speeds. I've also heard it was only on the first models, and due to the hand guards having bad aerodynamics. AFAIK it's solvable with aftermarket (or no) hand guards.
I've had both Yamaha and Honda motorcycles in the past, and all of them had extremely poor suspensions. My Honda XLV1000 fell multiple times from the stand because how soft the suspension became after only 6 months even after tuning it for maximum force.
I'm surely a contributing factor for being overweight, but they should be anyway approved for 2 people, and swapping the suspensions with aftermarket quality ones always solves the problem. Looks like many Japanese made bikes share this problem; they're fantastic, but their suspension system is definitely not on par.
Also some people have custom made Vespas like I do and to get it approved by the EU as a vehicle I have to export it to Switzerland and then reimport it to my country, but keep on letting your imagination run wild
Vehicle are approved by each country, not by EU. EU make that validation in one country is accepted in all country of the union and other countries that have a treaty with the union (Switzerland in this case). So you are blaming EU for the failure of the country you are in whereas it's the EU rule that have allowed you to get it in another country.
EU has help you to get what you need and for some reason you find a way to blame it.
If there was no EU, you would need to have one validation per country.
I want to convert my bike to electric, so I've been looking into the legal stuff. Doesn't seem like there's any obstacles so far. And there's plenty of electric cars around, I'm thinking a motorcycle would be the same, but I'm not 100% sure.
Also thinking of starting a local business on this, surprisingly no one else is doing it, so there's got to be a catch somewhere.
E-bikes sell for 2400+ Euros, how is that even possible. A good one could be built for ~1000-1500 at most, which still leaves enough room for a lower price and a profit from the (little tbf) research I've done.
I can’t wait for electric motorbikes to be more diverse and advanced.
I used to be a “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” kinda guy. Until one day, sat in standstill traffic in my car on the M74 motorway just outside Glasgow, a rider on a BMW S1000XR, with the same loud exhaust as on mine, filtered past the window and I didn’t hear him until he was level with my rear passenger door.
Exhausts sound great, i love the sound of a nice engine, it’s utterly intoxicating but it turns out that modern insulated cars block out the noise too well to make them useful as an awareness tool.
So, i’m fine with a silent electric bike from a safety point of view. The exhaust noise was a false comfort blanket that deserves no faith put in it as a device to be better seen on the road.
You should be treating people like people-not limited terms like “liberal“, “conservative”, or anything else. People are people. Ends unto themselves. Not means to an end, such as whatever calling someone liberal allows you to do and feel.
A loud bike has the benefit of being a giant "f you, I'm an antisocial idiot" to pretty much all the innocent passerbies, race colour gender political affiliation OS preference aside :). It shows to others exactly what your post does so succinctly.
That was my interpretation at first too, but their anecdote about being heard from inside a car leads me to believe they're talking about cars seeing/hearing them on the road for safety reasons.
That's the biggest annoyance in my eyes.
As a motorcyclist, i think its ok for the engine to make some noise (not counting the obnoxious cruisers or bike with some aftermarket exhausts), but there is truly no reason to rev up hard while sitting in traffic or in a slow central streets.
Also, the "utterly intoxicating" sound is often forced onto others without their consent. Like playing your music through a loudspeaker in a public place.
Some of them have a sound so that pedestrians can hear them coming. It isn't ridiculously loud - and if you wanted to silence it, you could easily make some modifications. I doubt silencing an EV would be legal though.
When you're hard of hearing like me, traffic noise makes conversation impossible just about everywhere inside a city. Electric vehicles might have fixed this, if the solution were not being banned. That is intensely annoying.
(If not outside, you can try chatting inside. But public meeting places inside are almost all noisy too: if not crowded enough to be noisy, most will add music or TV to compensate.)
Have you heard the EV noise though? In France there are a lot of Renault Zoe around, and the noise is much softer, narrower band (which might help not mask vocal frequency band) than a gas engine. To be honest, I’m grateful, otherwise I’d cross in front of one as a pedestrian or cyclist. I’d even like to see the front of city buses with some noise since, with the engine in the back, you just hear them whoosh past when they barely miss you.
It is good that safety is not being overlooked. My problem with it is in expecting us to get locked in to this particular answer to the problem, when cars are going to drive themselves more and more, with better awareness, etc. Maybe I should trust more that we'll also solve the coordination problem of switching to really quiet cars in the future.
I’m all for quiet cars. As a cyclist though I rely on at least tire noise to judge proximity of cars around. I’d guess that’s the noise floor for cars.
Re-reading my comment, I see how this can come across. I'm actually fully in favor of having these speakers. Even if they would be annoying, then we should just switch to mainly using public transport especially in areas where people live or want to enjoy the outdoors. But yeah presumably it's just a low volume, enough for the person behind the car to realize it's on and rolling but not carry further. I haven't heard one myself yet.
Yeah, your loud pipes don't help the fact that most people can't handle driving without intentionally distracting themselves with music, apps, or phone calls. Driving a car is too easy a task and requires just enough focus that people go on mental autopilot and ignore outliers like motorcycles and bicycles.
Unless one trains oneself to notice them (or if one has an affinity to them due to being an enthusiast), two wheeled vehicles are a lot harder to notice while driving in a car.
As well as everybody who is not currently in traffic that also gets to 'enjoy' your loud exhaust. And needlessly revving the engine when standing still is also probably in some way related to traffic safety.
That should not be necessary. Bicycles don't need it, do they?
Moreover, with modern blind spot cameras, automatic collision avoidance systems (which will probably, cheaply, equip every electric car), I hope these concerns will completely fade away.
Most importantly, slowing down cars in residential or dense areas. The slower vehicle traffic is moving, the less likely that a collision will be fatal. (By a lot!)
Ok, well I have been hit by vehicles on various bicycles five times. Always follow the laws, ride the lanes, lights, blah blah blah. On my liter bike with an after-market exhaust, people mostly get out of my way.... so I mounted an air horn on my bike handlebars, people now see me magically.
At least that's better than loud exhaust pipes. Loud bikes activate the fight-or-flight system in a way that klaxons do not.
Maybe that's because the loud bikes have frequencies and intonation modulation close to those of a menacing voice? (or growl)
At least in Japan, some bikers (bōsōzoku) do on purpose some kind of sounds similar to somebody arguing angrily (and snarkingly!).
But I don't want to accept neither as a solution air horns and vuvuzuelas competing for my attention and for the privilege of prematurely obliterating my cochlear hair cells.
There are other ways, let's do this. We are smarter than that, aren't we.
It wouldn't help. There's literally nothing that can be done to get a cager's attention, if they're distracted. I've had to knock on windows, to prevent people from merging into me. Loud pipes, hi-viz clothes, horns. Nothing helps. People are just too self absorbed to pay attention. You people see cops (sometimes) and vehicles bigger than yours and that's about it.
Perhaps treating the other road users as people instead of derogatory terms like cagers would help. In addition, choosing a mode of transport which is literally 20 times more lethal per kilometer than driving is your responsibility. You can always choose to be a ‘cager’.
Blaming people for injuries are deaths caused by cars is the most discusting tactic the car industry has used to fight against road safety. Just look at any newspaper article about car drivers murdering children: they are always phrased as in "inattentive child was looking at his cellphone and died in a road".
I find it incredible that walking on a street is illegal in parts of America. Honestly, the only reasonable solution to this is a Netherlands-style law that makes the biggest vehicle automatically guilty for all accidents they caused: this alone being deaths down tenfold.
I wish it was that simple. First of all, around half of the lethal accidents with motorcycles do not involve another road user. The other half is often caused by the motorcyclist due to speeding, insufficient distance or incorrect clothing and protection.
Second of all, while cars have seen half a century of safety improvements, motorcycles have lagged behind. Nevertheless, road use and traffic density have increased. Riding a motorcycle is akin to driving a car without a seatbelt, without a crumble zone and without ABS (and even then it is more lethal). Accidents happen. It is how you prepare for them that makes the difference.
Yes, I also find it incredibly stupid how the US has become so walking and cycling unfriendly. The reason why the Netherlands is different is not due to legal or regulations. It's because we have had leaders who made long-term plans to separate the various types of traffic. This means we separate the risk groups. You won't find many walking on roads with traffic exceeding 50 kph (30 mph). You won't find cyclists on highways. That is the solution.
To me the sound of those big bikes is a form of terrorism. They rise my blood pressure, increase stress levels and make me hate. Try living somewhere where every 20 minutes such bikes make the windows of your flat shake and you can't hear your TV or your partner talking until the bike is gone. Why do I have to suffer this every day of my life? I can't wait until the ICE is part of our primitive past.
I understand that performance engines need unobstructed exhausts up to a certain point, but pipes tuned to amplify this sound is distracting at best, damaging your ears at worst. I don't like them.
They become hazardous in tunnels, underpasses and other closed spaces. Ultra loud pipes kill my ears' locating capabilities and I can't mentally place the motorcycle to the correct place so I won't unintentionally endanger it.
The place I live has many more motorcycles in recent years and they drive dangerously to save time (delivery guys), and it makes my life as a car driver much more harder.
If you always drive in my blind spots and have loud pipes to blind my ears, I cannot see you, even if I very hard to try. So please be a little more considerate.
I don't know what to tell you, I'm normally a pretty sensible type. Stick to the speed limits, have a small sensible car etc. But on a motorbike the noise of the exhaust while riding a motorcycle is intoxicating!
I live in a nature area, on a curvy road (a dike). On sunny days, the amount of motorcycles passing is insane: several hundreds.
Of those, under 1% is like you: rediculously loud, shifting gears too late, etc.
Me and my neighbors are so fed up with those 20-something noise pollutors per week, that we're working with our regional govt to ban all motorcycles on these roads, or re-arrange our road so motorcycling is no longer fun, here. Apparently that is the only route left, now.
So congratulations: you've managed to spoil a hobby of hundreds of motorcyclists. (Besides being annoying as hell, obviuosly)
Can you be underestimating how sound propagates in silent environments, and our brains are so efficient at filtering background noise?
Since the pandemic started, traffic around my home decreased tremendously and, even smallest traffic became bothering. In sparsely populated areas, that oddball sound is much more disturbing to residents which are used to silence.
BTW, getting angry to people who we don't know personally is not very productive IMHO.
I'm intrigued about which part of that response you thought was angry?
The front elevation of my house is less than 15ft away from a reasonably busy road. I'm no stranger to the perils of noise pollution. In fact, around one week a year, last week in fact, the M25 (the London ring road) is diverted overnight along our road. This means we have heavy trucks passing our home all night long. We also live under the departure route for Heathrow (though that's been relatively quiet this year!).
I think people should live and let live though. Otherwise we end up in a situation where people are constantly trying to ban other people's hobbies. Off-road driving, motorcycles, horse riding, light aircraft, playing the drums, road cycling, caravaning, beer gardens, smoking weed, barbequing, DIY, fixing up old cars etc. They all have something someone else could find objectional if they lack joy enough in their own life to want to cause misery in someone else's.
> I'm intrigued about which part of that response you thought was angry?
From your general tone, but I'm not a native English speaker, so I might be mistaken. I won't be insistent.
I won't dispute about the noise levels of your home, but you might be more tolerant to noise then people in quiet places, because auditory subsystem learns to ignore it, and it decreases noise sensitivity somewhat.
> I think people should live and let live though.
I'm not against that, but I don't agree that one's hobby can bother others under the name of freedom. We see a lot of similar stuff done by local governments. UK is installing "decorative" items on the walls and benches in parks to prevent skaters from using walls for tricks for example. Contrarily, I'm sure that there are specially built skating parks for who want to board and skate.
In the same perspective, I'm not against biking. It's a nice culture. It's important, however loud pipes, dangerous driving under the name of increased visibility, etc. are not acceptable in my book. Similarly, if a quiet country is ruined by excessive motor noise, I can understand the residents' reaction. As I've said somewhere in the comment, my father was a rally driver. I'm no stranger to powerful engines and cars, yet I don't like the noise of a modified car screaming through a nearby street in the silence of the night.
Ford's latest Mustangs have a "neighborhood mode" when the engine is first started, which enable all mufflers and disable resonators. That thing sounds like a family sedan in that mode. If a car manufacturer is installing something like that to a naturally loud beast, it's telling IMHO (and I applaud them for their ingenuity).
If we (not in the terms of you and me, but in the terms of general public) can apply some empathy to the issue, it's possible to find a nice middle ground around this issue.
Hear hear. Noise pollution is one of the biggest reasons why I never want to live in a city again. And loud-pipe motorcycles are by far the biggest contributor to that—more than garbage trucks, delivery vehicles, truck engine (jake) brakes, or even sirens (except in New York where the sirens are inexplicably loud even outside the urban canyons of Manhattan).
Euro 4/5 big bikes are surprisingly quiet off the floor then they swap the exhaust and it's loud as fuck.
I'm a motorcyclist and I'll be moving to a larger bike next year but I want one that is as quiet as practical, on bike comfort is better if you don't scream every time you go over 5K.
> To me the sound of those big bikes is a form of terrorism
Small bikes are way worse. These 50cc two stroke engines, often illegally modified with loud exhaust. Not only they are as loud if not louder than a big motorbike but they are so slow they linger around for a while, often it populated area like cities.
They are popular in France because you only need to be 14 to ride one (vs 18 for cars) and you don't need a license.
I believe that by "the sound of those big bikes" the commenter does not know the bike characteristics other than by their sound, so it's the same either with a physically small or big bike: what he is stating is that he does not like the big sound.
That's true that there are big as well as small bikes with an horrendous sound, they are equally harmful.
I agree that they should very quickly belong to history (or museums). I wish that this new Yamaha concept will accelerate bikes electrification.
Only god knows how much I hate those things. I don't think there's ANY vehicle as infuriating as a two-stroke scooter driving down a street slowly while revving its engine to death. Their stink and noise makes fighter jets blush. Frankly, the permanent hearing damage the riders probably get is well-earned by being such an enormous moron.
Yeah crotch rockets are another level all together. When they open up the throttle on the freeway near my house I can hear them still going at least 2km away!
It gets me utterly sick as well and covering my ears does’t help much. I don’t think the only intention is be heard but to be noticed by absolutely everyone, awake or asleep. It’s a show off
Hi-viz doesn't work though. I use to look like a walking highlighter, I might as well have been invisible. Put on aftermarket exhaust and people know I'm there. The difference in behaviour was crazy.
Sorry, I don’t understand why you’re downvoted, because that’s kinda interesting. Has someone wrote the sound also don’t help in many cases so that could indicate that many aren’t paying enough attention while driving or we’re lacking some way to make bikers visible (both motorcycles and bicycles).
Aftermarket exhaust and slight left/right swerving movements beats hi-viz. The swerving is meant to catch the eye's attention in the side mirrors.
Many people also drive with earphones on so whatever external noises they hear is debatable. I'm betting most bikers will agree that hi-viz alone doesn't guarantee that you're visible.
If you can't find a safe way to use your mode of transportation without ruining the quality of life of your neighbors, perhaps it's time to find a new mode of transportation.
If you can’t find a way to sit in front of the AC and listen to the radio without clogging roads, burning fossil fuels at a double or triple rate, and impeding your visibility so much that you regularly endanger the life of your neighbors, maybe it’s time to find a new mode of relaxation.
The USA is one of the few countries where motorcycles are uncommon and seen as a surprising choice, probably due to our laughably simple drivers test that doesn’t even require knowledge of how to drive a manual. Motorcycles burn less gas, cause far less traffic, and cause far less damage to others when accidents occur. The single reason why motorcycling is dangerous is because of 4-wheel drivers, who constantly:
* Change lanes/cut you off without signaling
* Slam on their brakes without signaling
* Try to merge into your lane when they are next to you
* Read their phones and do all of these things
When I say constantly, I mean (in my city) every block or two of riding. Motorcycling is an exercise in constant scanning for the next person who is going to intentionally or unintentionally try to kill you, and having a loud exhaust is a way to quickly get them to realize they’re about to do so. It’s hard to see car drivers constantly put us in danger by (illegally) not paying attention for their own comfort, and then insinuate that it’s the motorcycle riders who are the problem.
One last note - I think most HNers are talking about loud sport bike exhausts like Yoshimura here, not Harley exhausts that sound like thunder every time you let off the clutch. These exhausts are normally at an acceptable, sociable noise level but can get much louder when you rev high, which is nice for blipping the throttle to get the guy next to you scrolling Spotify to look up before he sideswipes you.
So, even though I’m recovering from the multiple fractures I received after going over my handlebars, to avoid hitting a car that turned left in front of me in an intersection, who may never have seen me at all, I think I’ll stick with my mode of transportation. And you can stick with yours, and turn the radio up if you find the noise of motors on a motorway that unacceptable. I certainly do think a lot of riders take it too far, or just do it for attention. But I don’t think it’s fair to blame them in general for doing anything they can to counteract the lack of care and attention paid by people in cars.
Harley’s exhausts make me sick even if I cover by ears, the sound vibrates through my body. I also dislike a tool reving all the way up his standing crotch rocket in front of my house, it’s both bad for the engine and done to draw attention and annoy others, why is this even allowed? Or the exploding sound which makes my dog enter a panic attack? They install some special exhausts pipes for that, how is that legal?
I've always seen people who need/crave loud noises, bright/flashy colors, lots of bling, etc. as just not very bright people. It seems to correlate with lower-than-average intelligence. My theory is that those minds need more 'kinetic' stimulation in order to feel good. So far, after 50+ years of anecdotal experience I've found very few exceptions.
I'd love a silent bike with tons of torque. I'm not looking forward to the day where my bike phones home to the manufacturer, isn't repairable by an amateur in a garage, or comes with DRM.
Unfortunately I think both those are inevitable. For now I'll keep riding my 15-year old carburetor bike with no rider aids.
Speaking of rider aids, I sometimes wonder where the balance is between safety and fun. I think the sport is only interesting if it's challenging, so a self driving motorcycle doesn't seem like it's good for anything other than transportation. What about TCS? ABS? Slipper clutches?
Certainly there's a lot of skill to riding a motorcycle that TCS/ABS/Slippers (and displacement!) do not replace. I love that aspect of motorcycles. It's pretty amazing to be riding at your peak performance in B group on the track on a 650 and have someone on a Ninja 300 blow by you on an inside line at 20-30 seconds faster pace than you.
I think the only asshole here is you. You can enjoy riding HD without being an asshole. Big engines are loud, they need to breathe. People like you are the ones who promote cancel culture. Anything that is of slight annoyance to you must be banned. No tolerance.
Exactly. Motorcycle assholes should take their deafening fart sounds somewhere 20 miles away from human or animal habitation. Maybe to a desolate salt flat or something.
The bikes that violate vehicular noise laws should be confiscated and scrapped at the owner’s expense, and their riders’ motorcycle licenses revoked.
> slight annoyance
Subjecting your innocent neighbors to aural assault is a sadistic crime, not a slightly annoying hobby.
Deafening? The only one who will suffer hearing damage is the rider.
Next time get your decibel meter out and you will probably find you are just as offended by bikes within the legal limit. You sound like that type of person. Probably live a very sheltered life with no real problems.
Oh, bullshit: There are lots of even bigger engines that are less loud. Compare that .75-l Honda or 1.5-l Harley-Davidson against, say, a 6-liter Mercedes-Benz.
Q.E.D.
The assholes are those who come up with these feeble excuses for their antisocial behaviour.
I owned ride 6-7 different motorcycles, and I believe there's a special place in hell for those who put on loud aftermarket exhausts.
Sure, it sounds nice to them. It shows an astonishing disregard to thousands of other people they impact daily. Let alone your next 10 neighbour houses who put up with it on consistent basis. ... :O
There's no increased safety factor - there's no real location or distance clue such loud exhausts provide and in my experience they only stress and antagonize other drivers :-/
I obviously don't talk to enough bikers. This is the first timeI have even heard the idea, I'm 57 and certainly have known a lot of books riders, that people like loud bikes because they think it makes them safer.
We make it illegal to eat or use cell phones while driving because distracted driving is dangerous, yet it's ok to rattle everyone's windows with your Harley.
Even if somehow it is 'safer' for the biker it's definitely not for everyone else.
It’s not “ok”, we have the same laws against loud exhausts. They’re just not enforced. Why? I have no idea. Should be easier to enforce than cellphones.
There’s a pretty common four word slogan called “Loud pipes save lives” - if you look out for it you’ll start to see it everywhere, bumper stickers, tshirts, etc. Its somewhat controversial and not widely accepted by all motorcycle riders.
When starting out, take that weekend course your local college offers - and try all the bikes in a controlled safe environment. I was shocked how much I didn't want a sports bike - the posture and low speed maneuverability were horrid. I also didn't like cruisers personally, didn't feel in control leaning back. I turned into a lifelong standard posture guy - whether city bike or adventure or dirt/supermoto... But point is, find out what feels right for you, rather than get a 750cc superbike as your first ride based on specs or review or what you think may work well.
I had fun going full throttle redline on... My cbr125, back in the day:D. More so than on some twitchy overpowered bike where I feared touching the throttle.
Fwiw, in California it’s customary to do a day long motorcycle safety course in lieu of taking an on road test with the DMV, which is noted as having some aspects that are unusually difficult.
I did both, but the rules have changed since then. When I did the CA DMV motorcycle test it was super easy. Ride straight between two white lines, then around a full circle between the lines, then back between another set of lines - all you have to do is stay in the lines. Took all of about 1 minute. The trick was to use a small motorcycle, you need a 250cc or above for M1 so I borrowed a 250. Piece of cake.
When I did it (long ago) I think there was a cone weave as well. I started off thinking that test was a poor representation of what riding was actually like, but came to understand that for a quick test, it probably mapped pretty well to basic MC skills.
I did it about 15 years ago, but I think this is what I was referring to - I had just purchased an SV650 and was told the test would be virtually impossible to do with the bike (and most bikes) due to some low speed maneuverability portion that was only feasible with the small cruisers they use in the safety schools.
My instructor claimed the DMV had done this on purpose to encourage people to take the safety course, how they can't force people to do one by law so this is how they got around it.
I think that stands to a point (the twitchiest bike I ever rode was a 400CC supermoto), but depends on details and circumstance. Besides throttle control though, their weight may be harder to handle for newbies in e.g. stop and go traffic or narrow / twisty streets....
I ride such a "bigger more powerful bike with a flat torque curve", and there are two issues:
1. As a sibling said, there's the issue of weight. If you're inexperienced, it WILL bite you in the ass. Especially since the engine being very powerful and having great brakes, when "just starting slowly" it won't feel heavy. Hell, mine gives you the feeling it stands upright on itself. But try braking a bit harder while maneuvering and getting it tilted, and you better expect the 300 kg to want to get down.
2. As per 1, powerful engine + heft + (usually) great suspension give you a bike that feels very, very safe. Plus the torque from way down low never seems to quite "rush" you since you don't have to rev it. So it gives you confidence. Except that even though you don't feel like going fast, you actually are going fast. So you get fairly quickly in deep water, and everything is great while the sea is calm. The sea floor is right there! But you never know. Ride a bit too fast in a turn, and you better hope there aren't any trees around...
I rode moto-x as a teenager for about 4 years so I would, back then, class myself as reasonably skilled. Yet the first time on a proper big road bike scared the hell out of me and I never went any further. From then on it was 4 wheels all the way.
Not surprised in the least that there are so many accidents.
I recently (2 years ago) made motorcycle license (Poland) and bought 600cc Honda CBF600s.
During training we had to switch motorcycles (we started on 250cc, then after a dozen hours moved to 600cc which is required by Polish law to pass the exam).
I have felt comfortable on 250cc but moving to 600cc felt like I had to learn everything again from the start.
On 250 (140kg?) I could throw my weight around and cause motorcycle to do stuff while the same no longer seems to work on 600 (210kg?).
Overall I feel better and safer on 600cc because at highway speeds it does exactly what I need it to do and place myself exactly where I want without feeling that it is overpowered and that slight mistake with the throttle is going to cause me to loose control of it.
I tried a dozen different motorcycles from 125cc to 1000cc before I made my final choice.
One disclaimer is that I am rather cautious driver/rider. As an example I never drive/ride fast in relation to other drivers. I may ride faster but only so much so I still am able to react if they make something stupid. I also spend a lot of effort learning to drive/ride safer.
When it comes to pratical matters I think that for safety it doesn't matter much how large your bike is, as long as you are properly trained. 125cc or 1000cc, your prospects in an accident are roughly the same.
Smaller bikes (125cc or less) may offer better handling if you are not well trained and you panic but on the other hand they might be less agile in traffic where it is important to constantly place you away from blind spots of other drivers, etc.
The only danger comes from speed and acceleration. But if you are an adult and can restrain yourself to safe speeds I don't think larger motorcycle is less safe.
What I mean is that it is not the size of the motorcycle but the driver that causes it to be unsafe. And unsafe drivers may prefer to choose larger motorcycles because it allows them to ride faster.
Road rage is a terrible thing, nothing brings out intolerance like a metal cage. Try to abstract it, see road rage as a thing in itself, don't let it in. If you get there, all of a sudden you don't mind what or how other people drive.
If you don't get there, it's only you that suffers. That tic can't express itself in your self-imposed cage.
Being a pedestrian I get the raging tic for loud vehicles easily without any metal cage assistance. And sure I try to not get annoyed by their insane noise pollution and disruption of pleasant conversations or enjoyment of sound in a large radius. But fundamentally I believe that as the driver of an unnecessarily loud vehicle you* are an arsehole.
*you as in the driver, I am aware that the parent poster is not necessarily driving a loud vehicle.
I completely agree road rage is a terrible thing; I agree we are all responsible for our own behaviour; and as drivers we should not allow such things get to us.
But a needlessly loud motorcycle, particularly the kinds that "detonate/explode" on shifts/off-gas, will make me jump and annoy no matter what I'm doing - reading a book, having a coffee, mowing the lawn, going for a walk, playing with my kid, whatever... especially since unlike some similarly annoying sounds (Snoring, anyone :P), it is 100% purely intentional. This rider went out of their way to make it such, knowingly and willingly they spent money time & effort.
This is wrong. Many bikes have pops and cracks like this stock, straight from the factory floor. So do not assume the owner went out of his way to make it so.
Perhaps you should get some therapy. Healthy individuals do not get that worked up over minor things like loud vehicles. It passes you and it is over. Or do loud vehicles sit outside your home all day and night?
Quads do no harm, bit less co2 than a car, bit more exposure to the elements.
Buying two vehicles is considerably less eco. More noisy than electric but better range and more fun.
If you can't appreciate other people having fun, of course, it's lose, lose.
It is fun until you live next to a trail that becomes a quad highway in the weekend. I used to and I was really looking forward to the electric quad revolution. That would leave only the dust for us to suffer which, somehow is less distressing than the noise.
I get the point of loud engines being fun in a teenager kind of way but they are so un-fun to everybody else that we should strive to look for and provide some other fun things to replace it.
I think you missed OP's reference to "urban areas". People who blast though densely populated neighborhoods on quads (usually "sport" models with obnoxious exhausts) generally have no regard for anyone around them. This is a very different scene compared to someone riding in the woods on one.
"people having fun" on quads have no place in the city, same with scooters with aftermarket exhausts. Especially when they go as fast as they can at 3am.
I always assumed that the point of loud vehicles was to assert dominance by being an asshole. If people are annoyed and upset then it is working exactly as intended. You have provoked an emotion that fuels your ego and image of yourself as a bad ass that doesn't care about other people.
This explains a lot of modern day behaviour, thanks for pointing out what should have been obvious. Yet here I have been all these years thinking these people didn't realise what they were doing.
I don't have aftermarket pipes - but your post is clearly from perspective of someone who doesn't ride. Sound is an essential part of the riding thrill, riding my bike past 10k RPM gives me F1 sound and insane rush. I suspect riding an electric motorcycle would be much less thrilling that way and make me more aware that I'm on a suicide machine.
I regularly get small children approach me on motorcycle and want to pull the throttle, then get scared, then want to do it again, there's something primal about that, it's (mostly) not about other people.
If you're knowingly annoying people for your own pleasure, I don't much care what your intentions are. You're either intentionally mean or too self centered to consider your actions effects on the people around you.
Or, more generously, just young and immature and not completely cognizant of the impact of your actions on others.
In a different lifetime I had a few bikes including a TL1000R that was just plain intoxicating to ride with aftermarket pipes.
There is no way in hell I could do that to my neighbors at this stage of my life, however, and I often cringe at the actions of my younger self. Nowadays, I refuse to even use gas powered garden tools for noise (and environmental) reasons.
I don't disagree with the conclusion but it's equally self centered to think someone is doing something just to annoy you - so if you just said "loud pipes annoy me" I have no problem with that statement, if you say "bikers are installing loud pipes to annoy me/others" well that's just wrong and I'm giving you insight into what the actuall motivation is.
As I said (GP here) - I rode motorcycles since 2008; I'll grant you that sound is absolutely part of the fun - but loud aftermarket exhausts, detonating straight pipes, etc which are the subject of the topic here -- I feel the world's balance is overwhelmingly on the negative in the "joy to self" vs "average impact to others".
I understand many people put the aftermarket pipes "for themselves", at least consciously, or at least claim so - but I feel at best, it's a degree of self-centerdness to not realize impact on others. I see it on Subaru forums too - fellow WRX/STi owners moaning about their neighbour's complaints and cops stopping them and people giving them dirty looks etc etc - obliviously blind that it was themselves who brought in on by installing ridiculous loud exhausts. A factory exhaust on my bikes gave me plenty of thrill, and while I did put a high-flow cat on my Scoobie, I searched for an exhaust with nice sound but quieter actual dBs than stock. Few things are B&W - but there is a loudness at which point it really really is about others.
(note that when you say "past 10k RPM", it sounds like you likely have a sportsbike, and as you say a stock one; those can be loud at high revs, but generally speaking the loudest bikes in my experience tend to be modified cruisers and wanna-be Harleys.
Also note that rider may not always get straight opinions from friends, depending who wants to fight what battle when - e.g. last summer, a rider was revving his throttle at a friends' cottage and boasting about his aftermarket pipes; given we were both guests, I politely nodded and meandered away... but everything for the rest of the evening confirmed the image I formed the moment I heard his pipes :-/)
I'm not trying to defend anyone - I'm just saying that looking at it from the perspective of "they are just doing it to show off" etc. is not really my experience (there's some of that for sure)
I'm not a fan of aftermarket exhausts, stock one is plenty loud for me and doesn't disturb anyone while I'm riding normaly. I especially dislike the grandpa chopper bikes that sound like tanks, like you said my sports bike gets insane at >9k RPM - but I don't ride insane in populated areas.
I think we are likely indeed converging to a point of agreement.
Things are usually on a spectrum and not binary; I agree that part of the thrill of ride is the sensation - vibration, noise of wind and engine, gravity forces, etc - and certainly manufacturers of both performance bikes and cars frequently tune the engine and particularly exhaust for desired image and sound.
I still maintain though that there is a wrong side/portion of that spectrum, and that e.g. a straight pipe on a Harley does far more negative impact on others than positive impact (real or perceived performance, rush, etc) on the rider.
Sure.. I get a kick out of twisting the throttle on my Yamaha a couple times but I totally disagree that it is an essential part of the experience. If you could sell me a completely silent but very powerful motorcycle I would buy it. And even if you are thrilled by the sound, there comes a point (when you put straight pipes on) where it clearly becomes less about whether the rider can hear their own bike and more about whether everyone else can. So As someone who has spend hundreds of thousands of kilometres on a motorcycle I totally agree with grandparent post here, once it gets to that point where you are changing your exhaust to make it louder, it out is mostly about egos and images.
IDK - I had a few biker friends (before I moved last time, pretty much stopped riding since my son was born, going to sell the bike any day now), they would use DB-killer but if we went off riding twisties they would pull it out and just enjoy the insanity. There was one guy who would ride without dbkiller all the time, he was a dick in general, so there's that.
I don’t ride, but I’ve often considered it as a hobby. Even still, I wish people who just really like noise would get themselves some headphones instead of disrupting everyone else, damaging their hearing, interrupting their (even indoor) conversations, waking sleeping children, etc. It’s incredibly selfish behavior and I can only imagine people who behave this way are compensating for something.
I almost buy the “loud pipes save lives” angle but if you need to deafen others to protect yourself maybe motorcycling just isn’t an institution worth keeping around. That said, I don’t think it needs to come to that.
Loud pipes argument is bullshit in my book, I've been riding for 5 years now and never had a traffic accident, defensive riding is the only way to be "safe" (you're never really safe on a bike, even a little gravel on the road can mean you end up in a coma), relying on other drivers having to notice you is a pointless gamble, just assume they aren't going to and drive accordingly. Also I notice people get startled by a loud bike approaching - and the last thing you want is to startle an insecure driver.
Me as well, until I bought Forza Horizon and discovered my car had a turbo..
I don't dispute that some loud exhausts are the result of exactly what you describe, but also many are motorheads who have less restrictive exhaust systems for performance reasons or just to enjoy their vehicle (unfortunately sometimes at the expense of other peoples hearing)
I love this comment! I live out in country and it seems like every jackass with a Harley has to add some noise pollution just so they enjoy the freedom of the open road.
I have this same theory with road cyclists. I have no problem with someone bicycling to get to work but there are many other types of exercise that don't involve blocking traffic by making other drivers terrified to hit you. It's like doing jumping jacks at a gun range. There must be a dominance factor at play.
Homie, it has nothing to do with you or your work commute. Cyclists have every legal right to be on the road as a car and if a shoulder lane isn’t safe enough to cycle on then it’s safest and recommended and the law to take up a whole lane to ensure assholes like you don’t risk their safety/lives by trying to squeeze past them in the same lane. Best to just treat them as a car and try to practice patience.
>Cyclists have every legal right to be on the road as a car and if a shoulder lane isn’t safe enough to cycle on then it’s safest
How many man hours are wasted by cyclists who take up the road and drive at half or less the speed limit? Isn't that sort of selfish, asshole behavior? Why should their desire to exercise in public supercede that of everyday people trying to go about their lives? Sure, it may only be a couple of minutes of inconvenience for the driver stuck behind a bicyclist, but collectively there is a significant externalized cost and I think people have every right to be infuriated by the selfishness.
Cars are usually more expensive than bycicles and inconvenience people too.
Don't get me wrong, I've got both a car and a bicycle, not 100% for road cycling but count it as if it was (it's a gravel bike.)
For me cycling beats running 100-0. I can easily pedal 100+ km but I can't run 100 meters, too tiresome. Furthermore I see 100 km of the world vs a small area around my home.
Ultimately it's all subjective. Each of us likes something different and it's OK.
Seconded, and thank you for pointing that out. Apologies for the terrible juju to everybody who read that. Nothing good comes out of outbursts like that, especially on the internet.
It is fine to speculate, but "must" is a strong assumption. Your analogy is also based on flawed data. Yes, when riding on streets there is a chance of getting killed, but getting regular exercise reduces your chance of dying for other reasons. There are many studies that demonstrate this. Here is one:
Tell me what you think the benefit:risk ratio is of doing jumping jacks at a gun range.
I have worked from home for a long time, but 15+ years ago I commuted by bike about 12 miles each way three times a week when the weather was good. Dominance had nothing to do with my choice to bike there.
I could ride there by bike in 45 minutes, or I could drive there in 25 minutes (lots of stop and go). Same on the return trip. My mental calculus was I got 90 minutes of exercise for an incremental time expense of 40 minutes. That I was also not polluting was a bonus.
The nearest accident I had ever was one day when I was on connector road that had recently been widened and hadn't yet picked up a lot of use. Despite there being no traffic at that moment, I've always 100% obeyed traffic laws, so I stood over my bike waiting for the red light to change. About 20 seconds into it a pickup truck came screeching to a stop just about five feet behind me - he literally locked the tires and left skid marks. Guess what his reaction was: to shout and scream to the point of spitting that I was lucky to be alive and that I wan an asshole for biking on the road. I still don't know if he saw me all along and it was a calculated dominance display, or if he was daydreaming and really did nearly cream me.
I know my opinion is unpopular. I just don't trust drivers enough to pay attention when they have 3-5k lbs more weight than I do. Much safer to run on the sidewalk and I don't bother anyone.
I’ve always said that an exhaust should only be as loud as the vehicle or motorcycle is fast. I put exhausts on my vehicles and motorcycles that free the flow of air which makes the engine (an air pump) perform better. I never put one on a slow vehicle just to make it louder. Consider this the same as overclocking a cpu. You are burning up more electricity than you “need” to, all for your own personal greed or need for speed? The door swings both ways.
Wow, downvoted into obscurity despite factual basis. Overclocking can in fact produce EMI.
I realize that audible noise is very readily recognized as harmful. It’s been studied and proven to be harmful, as have other forms of pollution. I think EMI affects less people directly but it’s still noise.
I think you're down voted due to ridiculousness / perceived intellectual dishonesty.
You're putting the argument that overclocking a CPU, due to increased impact, is analogous to putting a straight pipe on a Harley.
I would imagine that difference is sufficient number of orders of magnitude different to be a fundamentally ignorable comparison, and obviously so.
A loud pipe has an immediate and continuous demonstrable negative impact on hundreds and thousands of people per trip.
You would need to show me some reaaally good studies to show that increased (not just baseline) EMI of overclocking is even readily detectable through the faradey cage of computer case and then three houses down the road, and distinguishable in the noise of street transformers, Fridges, laser printers, etc.
If it affects 1% of the population instead of 50% then it’s far more likely to be dismissed.
Also, given other similar noise, adding a little more doesn’t seem like an issue.
None of this is to say that two stroke motors and loud vehicles don’t get on my nerves. Rather, we all have more in common than we think we do.
I used to be considered “sensitive” because I hated all of the latent noise. I feel like I would be considered “reasonable” based on this thread which is now backed by studies showing noise and environmental pollution as having long-term, negative side-effects.
On a technical note, Faraday cages are much better at protecting receiving electronics from outside signals than the other way around. Signals have an easier time leaving a Faraday cage than entering.
>If it affects 1% of the population instead of 50% then it’s far more likely to be dismissed.
I wouldn't call it insight, I'd call it prioritization; but perhaps more to the point, you've provided no evidence whatsoever that overclocking a CPU will affect any proportion of population whatsoever (not 50%, not 1%, not 0.01%), at any distance, in any circumstance. And remember, we're not even saying "whether a computer emits EMI". The claim put forward is that overclocking a PC, say from 3ghz to 3.3ghz, has detectable enough negative impact on people other than the owner / in other households, to be part of this discussion.
Certainly, I currently do not believe so and am dismissing your argument for that reason. You are welcome and indeed encouraged to persuade me otherwise :)
>>"I put exhausts on my vehicles and motorcycles that free the flow of air which makes the engine (an air pump) perform better"
As I mentioned in other thread
1. What proportion of people with straight pipes take them on a track or engage in competitive endeavour
2. What proportion take advanced classes and have the skillset to take advantage of increase performance
3. What proportion put their bike on a dyno before and after to have a foggiest clue if straight pipe does anything
4. What proportion of them tunes the rest of their bike to take advantage of new pipe
5. For how many loud cruisers is performance in any way even remotely an actual consideration? You don't buy a cruiser for speed.
Finally, you can get high flow pipes which are quiet. But that's not really the point is it ;)
I actually respect people who say "I got it because it's loud and cool and gives me a rush" because they're at least honest a*oles, more than 98% of people who claim its for performance but don't have a clue - they're fooling themselves as much as others :-/
No not necessarily by being an asshole. By being loud. Animals do it too like lions they have a mighty roar. But they only roar when they are afraid. No? Why would they otherwise roar?
I suspect you are partially correct, they will roar out of fear to try to scare of the other guy, but after a successful take down, they'll also roar to show their dominance, in order to assert their position.
you're right, they don't do it to be an asshole. they do, however, do it to feel like a badass, and they like feeling like a badass because they're an asshole.
if you start looking for it, or rather, start understanding that it's there, you will soon see an alarming number of people doing things solely because it makes them feel like a badass. it is 100% of the entire reason to live, in some people.
Where I live, they have started adding noise pollution cameras in the city center. They don't give ticket, just display the noise level and a smiley, but I'd love for them to become active and more common. It's so annoying being woken up at night because of some kind of really loud exhaust noise.
I'd love it if there were automated tickets for this. But California can't even get it together to allow automated speeding tickets, a bill for this just got killed.
In SOMA in San Francisco I'll often hear motorcycles drive by that are so loud they set off car alarms along their path.
And don't get me started on the cost/benefit of car alarms.
Once you’ve been the victim of the Kafkaesque process of being victimized by a computer error asserting your car didn’t pay a toll (“here is an image of your car including a different make/model and utterly dissimilar license plate number, PAY!”) you might understand the reluctance for more automation by California.
I used to work in a busy downtown area of the east bay and we used to get a lot of the loud bike with loud stereo rolling through. What other possible motivation could there be for such a thing than wanting the attention? South Park hit the nail on the head with their loud motorcycle episode.
As for the cameras, I’ll echo the sentiments of a sibling comment. You don’t want them. I lived in AZ in the mid 00’s when these things were everywhere. They mostly serve to disrupt the natural flow of traffic and caused people to make dangerous sudden stops when they should have proceeded through a yellow lights. Also, many are operated by third parties who take a cut and charge a fee to run them. If they fail to produce enough revenue they become a financial liability to the city, which will either monkey with signal time to increase ticket revenue or simply remove the camera.
>What other possible motivation could there be for such a thing than wanting the attention?
To be fair, convertibles are similar. The wind noise of the open air is very loud when moving at speed, so the stereo must be that loud to compensate. There are some setups that will increase/decrease the volume appropriately as the speed changes, but that's not always the case. So as the bike is sitting at a light, the sound is still blaring at the same volume. Maybe the rider is still an asshat for not lowering the volume, but I'd go so far as saying their an asshat for refuting the concept the sound of the ride is the experience by blasting choons.
Modifying the exhaust can add power which is why you never see stock exhausts at the track. But for most riders, the performance improvement is barely noticable.
I'm saying this as someone that had an aftermarket exhaust on all of 3 of my street bikes and one of my dirt bikes.
1. How many aftermarket exhausts actually add meaningful performance
2. How many people actually need / notice / use whatever performance they gain
vs
3. How many people, consciously or not, admittedly or not, just get it for bling and sound
Very few people with aftermarket parts take their bike or car on the track or competition. Very few have training to take advantage of it.
(I don't speak from a theoretical high horse - I spent thousands of dollars myself to add power to my WRX, before I finally realized that 1. Stock car was already faster than myself, and started investing in lessons/training/practice runs, and 2. The hands-down best investment I made in my car was a $200 aftermarket (additional) multi-point seat harness, as it stabilized my body/arms and enabled a much much finer degree of control. If I were to modify a car today, I'd start with suspension/control, not engine/power. For bikes, even more so - every bike I ever owned, from 50 scooter to 400cc supermoto to 500cc adventure and 750cc touring, can do amazing things in hands of a professional rider and can do far far less in my own hands; modifying it for "performance", for 98% of riders, is pointless and we're only fooling ourselves )
In my life, the most clear & obvious example of negative externalities is loud vehicles. I'm saying this as someone who would cut 90% of regulation: but I think anyone on a public street with a vehicle louder than a UPS truck should get fine. Enforced by a camera and microphone array.
I have lived in both Manhattan and the rural midwest. The consistent, droning cacophony of the city pales in comparison to the suburban lifted truck with aftermarket exhaust that wakes up the entire neighborhood every morning at 6:15am.
As a private pilot: The same. I always took extra care to cut back on the engine after takeoff, crossing the homes near the airport more slowly and without ascending much. And I avoided pristine landscapes or at least also slowed down a lot for a much quieter engine and prop. Because when I was at home or in some national park I hated those noisy small planes as much as the next guy.
With a propeller the engine is not alone in producing noise, the propeller can easily be worse. Especially when you are perpendicular underneath an airplane crossing above.
Still, what I find even worse is that general aviation still uses leaded fuel. I know this is so "esoteric" for most people that few really care, because it is so abstract. As someone who went through a heavy metal diagnosis and chelator treatment (university clinic, lab proven exposure) I know that even the tiniest amounts still have an impact. Not a clinical impact, you are not sick. But your brain and everything works a bit worse. With tiny amounts adding up over decades any small problems you get will be attributed to "age", "stress", "it's in your head". Because while we know, statistically, that there is an impact (that is why the _medical_, threshold for lead, and others, is zero), we are unable to make any useful statements for individuals. Which means for any given person the problem does not exist, and for the population level it remains an abstract threat.
So noise is one thing, but spreading lead over the landscape - yes in tiny amounts, but I believe it still adds up and matters - to me is even more outrageous.
I apologize, for years I spread lead over some, or many?, of you guys here when I flew around the Bay Area. At the time I completely ignored the "LL" on my avgas. Only after my own clinical encounter did I realize what it meant, suddenly it was more than just a technical term.
Is the use of leaded gas just because most small planes are old? Do new planes still require leaded gas? It seems absurd that avaiation gas is still leaded when it was phases out decades ago everywhere else.
It's the last hold-out of leaded gasoline in the US that I'm aware of and the landscape is complex to say the least. Some aircraft engines still require 100LL to perform within spec but most modern engine designs can also accept high octane "mogas" or motor-vehicle gas. mogas is also often not available inside an airport so getting it requires a vehicle and gas-cans.
Fun fact: most small GA aircraft still use the exact same engine technology that they were developed with despite needing to occasionally replace the engine. Automobile engines have seen a lot of advances in the last 60 years but any given Cessna 172 you see in the sky is likely still working in exactly the same way as in the 1960's.
I completely agree. My CFI has spent time making sure I understand how to reduce noise impacts of my flying. I live out in the hills which means planes and motorcycles are the only noise intrusions I get on a consistent basis. I wish I could do more for the noise issue as a pilot.
As for the lead issue, I had a small crush on an experimental that is being developed. The company is using a brand-new engine that can technically burn mogas (Motor Vehicle Gas) but the wings are constructed such that putting any ethanol in the tank is a severe safety issue. This combined with the fact that 100LL and Jet Fuel (diesel) are usually the only two fuels available, it seems like a lock-in for more lead consumption.
While there is some good news in the lead/noise department, it's not taking hold as much as I think it aught to: there are electric trainer aircraft produced now that provide very low operating costs, much less noise and release no lead. Unfortunately, I was reading that the performance characteristics make them a less desirable training aircraft than a Cessna 172 so adoption is slow.
Question for parent: I know the FAA's avgas initiative has been around for a while, do you know of any significant progress they have made in the area?
I can't even stand listening to it on my own bikes, particularly if I'm slabbing it somewhere on a freeway at a steady speed, the racket is insufferable after 15 or 20 minutes, even with plugs and a full face helmet. There seems to be a prevailing masochism among this flavor of biker, who often add ape hangers and then ride around pretending to be comfortable.
Hah, I always wondered about those and didn't know the name ("Ape Hangers") until now... feels like my arms would lose circulation and muscles would hurt from that position! I assumed I'm just a wimp :P
I see a few posts now that I know what to search for that it "relieves strain on wrists and arms", but honestly, I think standard riding position (city / adventure / touring bikes) has the most natural and relaxed body position overall, as long as you can adjust it to your body size and proportions.
I think you're right- it might be more comfortable than, say, a race bike, but when I think about what it feels like to have my arms in the air for a length of time (like working on an overhead light fixture or something), I can only imagine what it'd be like trying to ride with a set of those goofy bars for an hour.
As a bicyclist, loud motorcycles are the fscking worst. They're deafening and extremely distracting, which is extra terrible if anything complicated is going on. Which there often is, because people on loud bikes are often driving like fscking idiots, dodging between cars who end up nearly crowding me off the road.
I had a motorcycle pass between me and a car while I was in a bike lane. Revved his engine while he was right next to me. Scared the daylights out of me. It sounded like a bomb had gone off. Seriously, screw motorcyclists with loud pipes that drive like idiots.
The keyword is idiot, not loud pipes. To be fair sometimes we cyclists also behave like idiots on the road. Same thing when we get off our bike, get into a car and drive. Of course an idiot with a needless loud exhaust is far worse than a silent one, I agree on that.
Yup... living on a 1st floor in a major city, I've grown a deep hatred for those with loud motorcycle/car engines/exhausts/soundsystems. It's unnecessary and ruins quality of life/productivity. The noise pollution is already bad enough in the city with everything else
"Loud pipes save lives," they say, while putting their own lives in danger from ordinary motorists who must constantly repress the urge to destroy the insufferable noise machine.
As someone who was a motorcycle safety instructor, which required a ton of training and memorization of safety statistics for a 20 something year old in order to teach new riders for a few summers during college - the numbers agree with your sentiment.
Loud pipes don’t do squat. All the noise is behind you, no one hears you coming they only hear you going, and at that point they hate you.
Now… I have an admission to make, and public apologies to give. The pipes on my current primary motorcycle are the exact same pipes I had on my previous motorcycle but they are significantly louder and it was way too late to do anything about it that wasn’t going to cost thousands before I realized.
They are not jerk levels loud, but they have enough rumble to them that I essentially do everything I can to idle out of my neighborhood in the morning (I’m a block in from an agricultural road). They don’t really reach “Harley level loud” until I’m at least 85% throttle and on my bike that is basically drag racing level of throttle position.
Here’s the thing- they were incredibly expensive and my bike is completely, _perfectly_, tuned for them with new FI programming, air intake, and full dyno tuning. No accel/decel pops, etc.
So- neighbors, world, I’m truly sorry. When I replace this bike I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Until then, know I feel like a jerk every morning in my new neighborhood basically coasting to the main road.
I mean, yes, we agree; what you are saying is you're an a*hole and you don't care. You wake babies, startle people, annoy thousands, anger others, cause negative emotions wherever you go, but that's the point and you love yourself some loud exhausts. The image you portray is exactly the image you want to portray and by all accounts accurate. To a certain degree, I suppose I should appreciate the warning, and as I said in a sister thread, I respect people who like yourself are open and upfront about being selfish bastards, over those who pretend (whether to others or even themselves) it's for safety or performance or some other nebulous rationalization :).
There's no increased safety factor - there's no real location or distance clue such loud exhausts provide and in my experience they only stress and antagonize other drivers :-/
Curious where this idea came from. Some bike riders must also be drivers and it’s very obvious this isn’t true.
Even when emergency vehicles turn on their sirens I can’t tell where they are until I see them when I’m driving.
Over here in France there's such a law too, but from my 2005 car, I cannot hear that noise. I barely hear the loud motorcycles behind me too, FWIW. When I hear them, they're usually up next to me.
When on foot, that's a different story. If there's low to no traffic, having an electric sneak up on you can be destabilizing.
Then again, I also ride motorcycles and remember one day, in a quiet neighborhood, there were three people walking in the middle of the street for some reason and didn't hear my bike, which was loader than the artificial electric car noise. They weren't wearing headphones, and given the time of day were probably not drunk either.
I have a BMW S1000RR with a stock exhaust and I want to get an after market exhaust simply because the stock one sounds awful. I don't want it to be particularly loud, just a more pleasant note. Unfortunately any after market exhaust may be louder. This is why I've held back on buying one.
For kids walking to school, people trying to nap, etc, loud exhaust is terrible on the ears and stressful in general. Electric bikes aren’t silent, but the whining noise is much less stressful than combustion engine noise.
To me, loud motor cycles seem like a sign of compensating for small genitals. Like many others in this thread, those loud sounds induce a huge amount of physical and mental stress.
It’s obnoxious and nothing else. Our cities and roads are already polluted enough as it is without the rest of the world having to suffer eardrum splitting motorbike exhausts that shake the whole building.
Bikes with loud exhaust all have the exhaust pointing out the back. If you want to be heard coming instead of going, you should add a U-bend just behind the muffler so the exhaust sound is projected forward.
Personally I am in favour of the judicious and summary execution of the death penalty for people who ride incredibly loud motorbikes in built up and residential environments... .
I've never been a fan of 'loud pipes save lives'. Its your riding skill that is going to save your life, your ability to anticipate the actions of others.
“Loud pipes save lives” is just like “the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. It sounds good, but falls apart it the real world.
I have two motorcycles, a BMW R1200GS with an Akrapovic slip-on exhaust which sounds fantastic but isn't particularly loud. It came with the bike new from BMW so I think that is the reason. The second bike I have is a fire breathing KTM 300 two-stroke enduro which not only sounds loud but also probably pollutes like like a truck. If I ride it directly from my house I sometimes just freewheel the first 50-100 m down the hill before I start it. It's a bit embarrassing and I wish it would be a bit quieter. I'm looking into a FMF pipe that is quieter.
As a car motorbiker and cyclist...silent objects coming up on me are scary. Very scary.
Thankfully the last few tesle that came 'close' were so much more loud than I was expecting, I was pleasantly surprised.
Silence may be golden, but also may be not.
Friend of mine turned in front of a motorcyclist who had loud pipes and was going about 50 in a 25 mph zone. He was complaining the whole time the EMT's were loading him into the ambulance that my friend was at fault because he had loud pipes.
I don't ride but have nothing against motorcyclists. But I wish there was some sort of tracking device that would warn me when they are around.
Last point something my parents warned me about when learning to drive. Not everyone has great eyesight or hearing, especially older people. Also older people often have limited neck mobility.
Had a similar experience the other day on the highway. Traffic was doing ~85mph so I was too and got passed on both sides within inches of my side mirrors by a group of 8 or so people on racing bikes with loud exhausts doing at least 100mph. I didn't hear them/notice them until they were basically in my blind spots, it was very unsettling.
I also suspect that the bulk of exhaust noise is projected to the rear of the vehicle anyway, which makes it not especially useful as a "safety" feature if you are unsafely driving considerably faster than and weaving through traffic.
Oh you were seen alright. Just not on a positive way. I have constant noisy motorbikes passing in front of my building and often feel like shooting one of their tires because of the stress of having to deal with this constant noise. If exhausts sound great, go to the country side and listen to it, but don't force others to.
> So, i’m fine with a silent electric bike from a safety point of view. The exhaust noise was a false comfort blanket that deserves no faith put in it as a device to be better seen on the road.
How many years have you ridden on the street, I can't count the amount of times I''ve been cut off but a blip on my SC project on a fireblade made people go back into their lane or at least made them aware of me lane splitting in just the last 5 months of riding street again in CA.
Maybe Ireland is different, but I think you have a better argument relying on automated cars saving you then no longer surviving due to a loud pipe.
Then again, Teslas seem to give way despite it's best in class monitoring system.
I'm pretty much over street riding a SS on the street is absurd because of the speeds and ositions you have to be in to ride it adequately to be responsive, so I can't derive much enjoyment of it to justify the risk.
Personally speaking if they decided to build a dedicated Motorcycle lane between at the very edge of the last lane I think that is the real solution, you don't need much more space to do it either.
Wow, this looks great. Straight out of some sci-fi anime
I absolutely love motorcycles. Sadly, most people into seem to be in the game just for the sound alone. I have very, very strong feelings about the vast majority of this "community" and cannot wait for electric to take over.
Sorry for the rant. I have to endure a lot of racers during all hours. It's hardly pleasent
Worst thing is that they are ruining it for everyone. Loud pipes, racing on the streets - causes more and more noise laws and motorcycle bans, making it harder for everyone.
Also looking forward to ride electric. Currently, the range sadly doesn't enable what I want to do with my bike - ride it out of town, to the mountains, where there is no infrastructure. But hopefully soon. For inner city commuting, electric bikes are already a great fit - prices are the only problem left.
They've taken the significantly-emptier streets of midtown-Manhattan and decided it's their playground evenings and late nights. Most of them are coming in from New Jersey. Usually it's 30 or 40 of them at a time and they ride extremely dangerously in addition to being loud.
I'd expect them to do their jobs and remain professional, and if they feel that they can no longer do that, then they should quit vs. petulantly refusing to do their jobs.
Public sentiment is the way it is because of rampant documented abuses of power, authority, and regression to childish, over simplistic views of their positions and responsibilities.
Purely anecdotally I used to have a motorcycle that after about a year had the muffler need replacement. I was a poor student and so bought a fake one instead that was just a muffler shaped pipe.
The difference was immediate and extremely noticable, the number of near misses went down a huge amount and the few times people got a little close I could just chuck the clutch in and give it a good rev to scare anyone off.
My biking days are done for now but if I go back I will not be going back quietly.
Why wouldn't you just put a wind-powered vuvuzela on the front instead? Then it's only being obnoxious when you're in motion and it's pointed in the direction that you want people to hear you instead of the opposite.
Depends on the car. Ever rode in a Mercedes S-Class at 250 kph on the Autobahn? Unnoticable, except of the fast whooshing by of overpasses, or such. (As front seat passenger)
Cars are isolated? On a regular basis I drive 5 different cars, various makers, I can hear a Harley just fine in either.
And from every parked car where a driver has a conversation on speakers I can hear it so well they might as well have had it outside of their car. New Teslas, BMWs.
Yes it is. I'm not a fan of motorcycle racing in the city but I used to commute using a scooter and I'd never do it on a completely quiet machine. Car drivers are already pretty oblivious to smaller vehicles.
I don't get the loud exhausts and I don't get the community either. I've been riding bikes all my life and I've never felt attached to any "community" of bikers.
I love the sound of engines and find videos likehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baGM9StRJfI very relaxing. (Of course, living near a busy street and having to endure tens of bikes at the same time is another thing).
Big Yamaha fan here. Learnt riding a motorcycle on one of their old 2 stroke models when I was 11 years old! Have been thinking about buying an MT3 for casual riding. This is so futuristic. I'm sure it needs a lot more testing before public release. Even though I'll not be buying one when it's available, it's just too beautiful to ignore!
The "Active Mass Center Control System" made me wonder: is it possible to make a passive balancing system that would keep a two wheel bike standing up?
That's a good question. There are some Halbach array tricks that you could probably pull where based on displacement the central mass generates a current that then moves the COG back to where it should be to rebalance. The losses probably will cause it to fall over after a while so that would be more of a stay of execution than a complete solution. The lower resistance of the coils the longer it would stay up. And adding a small active component to overcome the losses and it would stay up until the power ran out, but that would violate your 'passive' requirement.
At least it doesn't have the upgrade that first crossed my mind when I read that the back wings were for a future HMI. I was immediately reminded of the recent articles on HN about the potential for oxygen absorption thru the anus. This led me to think that a more useful upgrade for an HMI might involve an anal probe connected to an on-board oxygen generator to feed oxygen to the rider to help them stay alert. It seems like it would be useful on long cross-country trips. The wings could be retained as part of a deployable crash cocoon to envelope the rider so that they are buffered from the impacts of collision.
I did read in the comments that the range of this bike is probably pretty low so the functionality of the batteries would need to improve before this is practical for long-distance trips. In the absence of improved battery life, my upgrade would not be useful.
It is probably good that I don't design and build things for a living. Some ideas are not worth pursuing.
EDIT: I have thought of another advantage to the anal probe/oxygen generator. In the event of a non-fatal crash where the rider is injured but still has a heartbeat, the anal probe could function to supply continuous oxygen to the body preventing brain and organ damage as long as the oxygen generator functioned and the rider's heart was still beating. Hardening the oxygen generator should be important so that it is shielded from crash damage. This would also negate the need for resuscitation by mouth and in the event the rider's heart stopped, the anal probe could allow rescuers to focus on blood loss/circulation.
With that in mind it should be self-contained and detachable so that it could travel in an ambulance without needing to be removed. That would also make it possible to become a discreet accessory that you would put on (in) before mounting the bike and you could just wear it concealed as you shop, refuel, etc.
This looks very different. What I like: bold design, articulating rear, battery compartment actually looks good.
What I am curious about is how it actually rides. The photos and demos all look like they are out of a Boston Dynamics demo, less like they are for a bike you actually get on.
What I don’t like: this thing will be ugly as sin once you make it street legal. Also lack of fenders (which is how you avoid getting mud all over your legs and back).
As a cruiser fan, I can appreciate fast nimble sport bikes, but also can’t wait for someone to come up with an electric equivalent to the R18 or the Honda Rune.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 105 ms ] threadThe original text is reasonable as Japanese advertising copy, but advertising copy usually shouldn’t be translated. Instead, it should be written anew in each target language, sometimes with different content and graphics.
I worked freelance for twenty years translating Japanese to English, often advertising copy like this. Though I did my best, I was rarely satisfied with the result unless I was able to work closely with the Japanese client and write something original in English that met their needs and was appropriate for the target audience. Most clients didn’t have enough time, money, or awareness of the drawbacks of direct translation to make that possible.
[1] https://global.yamaha-motor.com/jp/design_technology/design/...
I was amused to find in one of the pictures a misspelled word. I didn't laugh but I did crack a smile. The trash can/ recycle bin in the cartoon encourages the viewer to "Picth In".
Cool bike, great story. I hope they iron out the issues that they find and this bike makes it onto streets everywhere.
I love how the Japanese people in the video linked on one post seem so accustomed to seeing cool stuff like this. I wish the guys at Yamaha all the success.
Good luck getting that approved for street use in the EU but what a beauty.
I wish there were driving videos available, I'll patiently wait
I had an MT09 Tracer that was wobbly as f. in curves and on stright lines at high speed. The rear shock was just too loose. Same for the MT07 since 2014.
EU has help you to get what you need and for some reason you find a way to blame it.
If there was no EU, you would need to have one validation per country.
Also thinking of starting a local business on this, surprisingly no one else is doing it, so there's got to be a catch somewhere.
E-bikes sell for 2400+ Euros, how is that even possible. A good one could be built for ~1000-1500 at most, which still leaves enough room for a lower price and a profit from the (little tbf) research I've done.
I used to be a “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” kinda guy. Until one day, sat in standstill traffic in my car on the M74 motorway just outside Glasgow, a rider on a BMW S1000XR, with the same loud exhaust as on mine, filtered past the window and I didn’t hear him until he was level with my rear passenger door.
Exhausts sound great, i love the sound of a nice engine, it’s utterly intoxicating but it turns out that modern insulated cars block out the noise too well to make them useful as an awareness tool.
So, i’m fine with a silent electric bike from a safety point of view. The exhaust noise was a false comfort blanket that deserves no faith put in it as a device to be better seen on the road.
People are very good at justifying thier anti-social behaviour to themselves.
I friend whom told me about two incidents.
I will never understand that behavior. In my life, the loud sound of a bike is my least concern.
Plus, in my passive aggressive wealthy county, a loud bike is a F---you to my phony liberal hypocritical neighbors.
So yeah, go electric!
You're in luck, that's exactly what electric cars will do instead of being quiet!
(If not outside, you can try chatting inside. But public meeting places inside are almost all noisy too: if not crowded enough to be noisy, most will add music or TV to compensate.)
If you want to be seen wearing bright leds.
I don't have loud pipes but I think it could help in blind spots, that's about it. I just don't ride in blind spots instead.
Moreover, with modern blind spot cameras, automatic collision avoidance systems (which will probably, cheaply, equip every electric car), I hope these concerns will completely fade away.
The traffic fatalities of bicyclists in cities would like a word with you...
There are plenty of other options.
Maybe that's because the loud bikes have frequencies and intonation modulation close to those of a menacing voice? (or growl)
At least in Japan, some bikers (bōsōzoku) do on purpose some kind of sounds similar to somebody arguing angrily (and snarkingly!).
But I don't want to accept neither as a solution air horns and vuvuzuelas competing for my attention and for the privilege of prematurely obliterating my cochlear hair cells.
There are other ways, let's do this. We are smarter than that, aren't we.
Blaming people for injuries are deaths caused by cars is the most discusting tactic the car industry has used to fight against road safety. Just look at any newspaper article about car drivers murdering children: they are always phrased as in "inattentive child was looking at his cellphone and died in a road".
I find it incredible that walking on a street is illegal in parts of America. Honestly, the only reasonable solution to this is a Netherlands-style law that makes the biggest vehicle automatically guilty for all accidents they caused: this alone being deaths down tenfold.
Second of all, while cars have seen half a century of safety improvements, motorcycles have lagged behind. Nevertheless, road use and traffic density have increased. Riding a motorcycle is akin to driving a car without a seatbelt, without a crumble zone and without ABS (and even then it is more lethal). Accidents happen. It is how you prepare for them that makes the difference.
Yes, I also find it incredibly stupid how the US has become so walking and cycling unfriendly. The reason why the Netherlands is different is not due to legal or regulations. It's because we have had leaders who made long-term plans to separate the various types of traffic. This means we separate the risk groups. You won't find many walking on roads with traffic exceeding 50 kph (30 mph). You won't find cyclists on highways. That is the solution.
They become hazardous in tunnels, underpasses and other closed spaces. Ultra loud pipes kill my ears' locating capabilities and I can't mentally place the motorcycle to the correct place so I won't unintentionally endanger it.
The place I live has many more motorcycles in recent years and they drive dangerously to save time (delivery guys), and it makes my life as a car driver much more harder.
If you always drive in my blind spots and have loud pipes to blind my ears, I cannot see you, even if I very hard to try. So please be a little more considerate.
https://youtu.be/eEdf0R5ypsg
https://youtu.be/GO6guuJtPkM
Other 10,000 people you pass be dammed.
However, having an intoxicating piece of equipment doesn't allow anyone to drive recklessly in public roads, endangering yourself and others.
This the the thing I can tell you, as a son of a rally driver.
Of those, under 1% is like you: rediculously loud, shifting gears too late, etc.
Me and my neighbors are so fed up with those 20-something noise pollutors per week, that we're working with our regional govt to ban all motorcycles on these roads, or re-arrange our road so motorcycling is no longer fun, here. Apparently that is the only route left, now.
So congratulations: you've managed to spoil a hobby of hundreds of motorcyclists. (Besides being annoying as hell, obviuosly)
Perhaps you should spend less time worrying about a little bit of noise, especially during daylight hours, presumably on mostly sunny days.
Since the pandemic started, traffic around my home decreased tremendously and, even smallest traffic became bothering. In sparsely populated areas, that oddball sound is much more disturbing to residents which are used to silence.
BTW, getting angry to people who we don't know personally is not very productive IMHO.
The front elevation of my house is less than 15ft away from a reasonably busy road. I'm no stranger to the perils of noise pollution. In fact, around one week a year, last week in fact, the M25 (the London ring road) is diverted overnight along our road. This means we have heavy trucks passing our home all night long. We also live under the departure route for Heathrow (though that's been relatively quiet this year!).
I think people should live and let live though. Otherwise we end up in a situation where people are constantly trying to ban other people's hobbies. Off-road driving, motorcycles, horse riding, light aircraft, playing the drums, road cycling, caravaning, beer gardens, smoking weed, barbequing, DIY, fixing up old cars etc. They all have something someone else could find objectional if they lack joy enough in their own life to want to cause misery in someone else's.
From your general tone, but I'm not a native English speaker, so I might be mistaken. I won't be insistent.
I won't dispute about the noise levels of your home, but you might be more tolerant to noise then people in quiet places, because auditory subsystem learns to ignore it, and it decreases noise sensitivity somewhat.
> I think people should live and let live though.
I'm not against that, but I don't agree that one's hobby can bother others under the name of freedom. We see a lot of similar stuff done by local governments. UK is installing "decorative" items on the walls and benches in parks to prevent skaters from using walls for tricks for example. Contrarily, I'm sure that there are specially built skating parks for who want to board and skate.
In the same perspective, I'm not against biking. It's a nice culture. It's important, however loud pipes, dangerous driving under the name of increased visibility, etc. are not acceptable in my book. Similarly, if a quiet country is ruined by excessive motor noise, I can understand the residents' reaction. As I've said somewhere in the comment, my father was a rally driver. I'm no stranger to powerful engines and cars, yet I don't like the noise of a modified car screaming through a nearby street in the silence of the night.
Ford's latest Mustangs have a "neighborhood mode" when the engine is first started, which enable all mufflers and disable resonators. That thing sounds like a family sedan in that mode. If a car manufacturer is installing something like that to a naturally loud beast, it's telling IMHO (and I applaud them for their ingenuity).
If we (not in the terms of you and me, but in the terms of general public) can apply some empathy to the issue, it's possible to find a nice middle ground around this issue.
I'm a motorcyclist and I'll be moving to a larger bike next year but I want one that is as quiet as practical, on bike comfort is better if you don't scream every time you go over 5K.
As a motorcycle and car enthusiast, that point is way beyond any sort of reasonable level of performance for public roads.
Small bikes are way worse. These 50cc two stroke engines, often illegally modified with loud exhaust. Not only they are as loud if not louder than a big motorbike but they are so slow they linger around for a while, often it populated area like cities.
They are popular in France because you only need to be 14 to ride one (vs 18 for cars) and you don't need a license.
That's true that there are big as well as small bikes with an horrendous sound, they are equally harmful.
I agree that they should very quickly belong to history (or museums). I wish that this new Yamaha concept will accelerate bikes electrification.
A difference is that some of them are not trying to be loud on purpose while others are. That's what triggers me. Their violence.
If smoking is not allowed I don't understand why this is, or why rules are not enforced. Changing homes is much harder than changing sidewalks.
At least there's hope. Seeing silent electric bikes go by makes me smile.
If the rider thinks it helps them get noticed in traffic, then fine, but then they should also have on a hi-vis jackets and helmet, which most don’t.
Many people also drive with earphones on so whatever external noises they hear is debatable. I'm betting most bikers will agree that hi-viz alone doesn't guarantee that you're visible.
The USA is one of the few countries where motorcycles are uncommon and seen as a surprising choice, probably due to our laughably simple drivers test that doesn’t even require knowledge of how to drive a manual. Motorcycles burn less gas, cause far less traffic, and cause far less damage to others when accidents occur. The single reason why motorcycling is dangerous is because of 4-wheel drivers, who constantly:
* Change lanes/cut you off without signaling * Slam on their brakes without signaling * Try to merge into your lane when they are next to you * Read their phones and do all of these things
When I say constantly, I mean (in my city) every block or two of riding. Motorcycling is an exercise in constant scanning for the next person who is going to intentionally or unintentionally try to kill you, and having a loud exhaust is a way to quickly get them to realize they’re about to do so. It’s hard to see car drivers constantly put us in danger by (illegally) not paying attention for their own comfort, and then insinuate that it’s the motorcycle riders who are the problem.
One last note - I think most HNers are talking about loud sport bike exhausts like Yoshimura here, not Harley exhausts that sound like thunder every time you let off the clutch. These exhausts are normally at an acceptable, sociable noise level but can get much louder when you rev high, which is nice for blipping the throttle to get the guy next to you scrolling Spotify to look up before he sideswipes you.
So, even though I’m recovering from the multiple fractures I received after going over my handlebars, to avoid hitting a car that turned left in front of me in an intersection, who may never have seen me at all, I think I’ll stick with my mode of transportation. And you can stick with yours, and turn the radio up if you find the noise of motors on a motorway that unacceptable. I certainly do think a lot of riders take it too far, or just do it for attention. But I don’t think it’s fair to blame them in general for doing anything they can to counteract the lack of care and attention paid by people in cars.
You're on the mark about hi-viz gear though. It's sometimes helpful but bikes are generally invisible.
It is just that majority of owners seem to replace exhaust system components to give it that "Harley sound".
Here is somebody doing a decibel test of their stock Harley: https://youtu.be/4LzFC1Ts7PE?t=63
Unfortunately I think both those are inevitable. For now I'll keep riding my 15-year old carburetor bike with no rider aids.
Speaking of rider aids, I sometimes wonder where the balance is between safety and fun. I think the sport is only interesting if it's challenging, so a self driving motorcycle doesn't seem like it's good for anything other than transportation. What about TCS? ABS? Slipper clutches?
Loud motorcycle engines are the sound of the world’s hugest assholes making their giant fart in the public’s face.
Exactly. Motorcycle assholes should take their deafening fart sounds somewhere 20 miles away from human or animal habitation. Maybe to a desolate salt flat or something.
The bikes that violate vehicular noise laws should be confiscated and scrapped at the owner’s expense, and their riders’ motorcycle licenses revoked.
> slight annoyance
Subjecting your innocent neighbors to aural assault is a sadistic crime, not a slightly annoying hobby.
Next time get your decibel meter out and you will probably find you are just as offended by bikes within the legal limit. You sound like that type of person. Probably live a very sheltered life with no real problems.
Oh, bullshit: There are lots of even bigger engines that are less loud. Compare that .75-l Honda or 1.5-l Harley-Davidson against, say, a 6-liter Mercedes-Benz.
Q.E.D.
The assholes are those who come up with these feeble excuses for their antisocial behaviour.
Sure, it sounds nice to them. It shows an astonishing disregard to thousands of other people they impact daily. Let alone your next 10 neighbour houses who put up with it on consistent basis. ... :O
There's no increased safety factor - there's no real location or distance clue such loud exhausts provide and in my experience they only stress and antagonize other drivers :-/
Even if somehow it is 'safer' for the biker it's definitely not for everyone else.
Lost count to seeing scenes like kids on H2Rs "crashing" into something at like just above pedestrian speeds.
It takes a lot of skill to drive a powerful, and heavy motorcycle. It's definitely should not be your first, or even second machine.
I'm myself on two-wheelers for 15 years still feeling that I am about to fly off a seat even on a relatively tame 300CC scooter.
When starting out, take that weekend course your local college offers - and try all the bikes in a controlled safe environment. I was shocked how much I didn't want a sports bike - the posture and low speed maneuverability were horrid. I also didn't like cruisers personally, didn't feel in control leaning back. I turned into a lifelong standard posture guy - whether city bike or adventure or dirt/supermoto... But point is, find out what feels right for you, rather than get a 750cc superbike as your first ride based on specs or review or what you think may work well.
I had fun going full throttle redline on... My cbr125, back in the day:D. More so than on some twitchy overpowered bike where I feared touching the throttle.
My instructor claimed the DMV had done this on purpose to encourage people to take the safety course, how they can't force people to do one by law so this is how they got around it.
1. As a sibling said, there's the issue of weight. If you're inexperienced, it WILL bite you in the ass. Especially since the engine being very powerful and having great brakes, when "just starting slowly" it won't feel heavy. Hell, mine gives you the feeling it stands upright on itself. But try braking a bit harder while maneuvering and getting it tilted, and you better expect the 300 kg to want to get down.
2. As per 1, powerful engine + heft + (usually) great suspension give you a bike that feels very, very safe. Plus the torque from way down low never seems to quite "rush" you since you don't have to rev it. So it gives you confidence. Except that even though you don't feel like going fast, you actually are going fast. So you get fairly quickly in deep water, and everything is great while the sea is calm. The sea floor is right there! But you never know. Ride a bit too fast in a turn, and you better hope there aren't any trees around...
Not surprised in the least that there are so many accidents.
During training we had to switch motorcycles (we started on 250cc, then after a dozen hours moved to 600cc which is required by Polish law to pass the exam).
I have felt comfortable on 250cc but moving to 600cc felt like I had to learn everything again from the start.
On 250 (140kg?) I could throw my weight around and cause motorcycle to do stuff while the same no longer seems to work on 600 (210kg?).
Overall I feel better and safer on 600cc because at highway speeds it does exactly what I need it to do and place myself exactly where I want without feeling that it is overpowered and that slight mistake with the throttle is going to cause me to loose control of it.
I tried a dozen different motorcycles from 125cc to 1000cc before I made my final choice.
One disclaimer is that I am rather cautious driver/rider. As an example I never drive/ride fast in relation to other drivers. I may ride faster but only so much so I still am able to react if they make something stupid. I also spend a lot of effort learning to drive/ride safer.
When it comes to pratical matters I think that for safety it doesn't matter much how large your bike is, as long as you are properly trained. 125cc or 1000cc, your prospects in an accident are roughly the same.
Smaller bikes (125cc or less) may offer better handling if you are not well trained and you panic but on the other hand they might be less agile in traffic where it is important to constantly place you away from blind spots of other drivers, etc.
The only danger comes from speed and acceleration. But if you are an adult and can restrain yourself to safe speeds I don't think larger motorcycle is less safe.
What I mean is that it is not the size of the motorcycle but the driver that causes it to be unsafe. And unsafe drivers may prefer to choose larger motorcycles because it allows them to ride faster.
*you as in the driver, I am aware that the parent poster is not necessarily driving a loud vehicle.
But a needlessly loud motorcycle, particularly the kinds that "detonate/explode" on shifts/off-gas, will make me jump and annoy no matter what I'm doing - reading a book, having a coffee, mowing the lawn, going for a walk, playing with my kid, whatever... especially since unlike some similarly annoying sounds (Snoring, anyone :P), it is 100% purely intentional. This rider went out of their way to make it such, knowingly and willingly they spent money time & effort.
I regularly get small children approach me on motorcycle and want to pull the throttle, then get scared, then want to do it again, there's something primal about that, it's (mostly) not about other people.
In a different lifetime I had a few bikes including a TL1000R that was just plain intoxicating to ride with aftermarket pipes.
There is no way in hell I could do that to my neighbors at this stage of my life, however, and I often cringe at the actions of my younger self. Nowadays, I refuse to even use gas powered garden tools for noise (and environmental) reasons.
I understand many people put the aftermarket pipes "for themselves", at least consciously, or at least claim so - but I feel at best, it's a degree of self-centerdness to not realize impact on others. I see it on Subaru forums too - fellow WRX/STi owners moaning about their neighbour's complaints and cops stopping them and people giving them dirty looks etc etc - obliviously blind that it was themselves who brought in on by installing ridiculous loud exhausts. A factory exhaust on my bikes gave me plenty of thrill, and while I did put a high-flow cat on my Scoobie, I searched for an exhaust with nice sound but quieter actual dBs than stock. Few things are B&W - but there is a loudness at which point it really really is about others.
(note that when you say "past 10k RPM", it sounds like you likely have a sportsbike, and as you say a stock one; those can be loud at high revs, but generally speaking the loudest bikes in my experience tend to be modified cruisers and wanna-be Harleys.
Also note that rider may not always get straight opinions from friends, depending who wants to fight what battle when - e.g. last summer, a rider was revving his throttle at a friends' cottage and boasting about his aftermarket pipes; given we were both guests, I politely nodded and meandered away... but everything for the rest of the evening confirmed the image I formed the moment I heard his pipes :-/)
I'm not a fan of aftermarket exhausts, stock one is plenty loud for me and doesn't disturb anyone while I'm riding normaly. I especially dislike the grandpa chopper bikes that sound like tanks, like you said my sports bike gets insane at >9k RPM - but I don't ride insane in populated areas.
Things are usually on a spectrum and not binary; I agree that part of the thrill of ride is the sensation - vibration, noise of wind and engine, gravity forces, etc - and certainly manufacturers of both performance bikes and cars frequently tune the engine and particularly exhaust for desired image and sound.
I still maintain though that there is a wrong side/portion of that spectrum, and that e.g. a straight pipe on a Harley does far more negative impact on others than positive impact (real or perceived performance, rush, etc) on the rider.
I almost buy the “loud pipes save lives” angle but if you need to deafen others to protect yourself maybe motorcycling just isn’t an institution worth keeping around. That said, I don’t think it needs to come to that.
I don't dispute that some loud exhausts are the result of exactly what you describe, but also many are motorheads who have less restrictive exhaust systems for performance reasons or just to enjoy their vehicle (unfortunately sometimes at the expense of other peoples hearing)
How many man hours are wasted by cyclists who take up the road and drive at half or less the speed limit? Isn't that sort of selfish, asshole behavior? Why should their desire to exercise in public supercede that of everyday people trying to go about their lives? Sure, it may only be a couple of minutes of inconvenience for the driver stuck behind a bicyclist, but collectively there is a significant externalized cost and I think people have every right to be infuriated by the selfishness.
Don't get me wrong, I've got both a car and a bicycle, not 100% for road cycling but count it as if it was (it's a gravel bike.)
For me cycling beats running 100-0. I can easily pedal 100+ km but I can't run 100 meters, too tiresome. Furthermore I see 100 km of the world vs a small area around my home.
Ultimately it's all subjective. Each of us likes something different and it's OK.
Less of this, please.
It is fine to speculate, but "must" is a strong assumption. Your analogy is also based on flawed data. Yes, when riding on streets there is a chance of getting killed, but getting regular exercise reduces your chance of dying for other reasons. There are many studies that demonstrate this. Here is one:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237214-why-the-health-...
https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j1456
Tell me what you think the benefit:risk ratio is of doing jumping jacks at a gun range.
I have worked from home for a long time, but 15+ years ago I commuted by bike about 12 miles each way three times a week when the weather was good. Dominance had nothing to do with my choice to bike there.
I could ride there by bike in 45 minutes, or I could drive there in 25 minutes (lots of stop and go). Same on the return trip. My mental calculus was I got 90 minutes of exercise for an incremental time expense of 40 minutes. That I was also not polluting was a bonus.
The nearest accident I had ever was one day when I was on connector road that had recently been widened and hadn't yet picked up a lot of use. Despite there being no traffic at that moment, I've always 100% obeyed traffic laws, so I stood over my bike waiting for the red light to change. About 20 seconds into it a pickup truck came screeching to a stop just about five feet behind me - he literally locked the tires and left skid marks. Guess what his reaction was: to shout and scream to the point of spitting that I was lucky to be alive and that I wan an asshole for biking on the road. I still don't know if he saw me all along and it was a calculated dominance display, or if he was daydreaming and really did nearly cream me.
I realize that audible noise is very readily recognized as harmful. It’s been studied and proven to be harmful, as have other forms of pollution. I think EMI affects less people directly but it’s still noise.
You're putting the argument that overclocking a CPU, due to increased impact, is analogous to putting a straight pipe on a Harley.
I would imagine that difference is sufficient number of orders of magnitude different to be a fundamentally ignorable comparison, and obviously so.
A loud pipe has an immediate and continuous demonstrable negative impact on hundreds and thousands of people per trip.
You would need to show me some reaaally good studies to show that increased (not just baseline) EMI of overclocking is even readily detectable through the faradey cage of computer case and then three houses down the road, and distinguishable in the noise of street transformers, Fridges, laser printers, etc.
If it affects 1% of the population instead of 50% then it’s far more likely to be dismissed.
Also, given other similar noise, adding a little more doesn’t seem like an issue.
None of this is to say that two stroke motors and loud vehicles don’t get on my nerves. Rather, we all have more in common than we think we do.
I used to be considered “sensitive” because I hated all of the latent noise. I feel like I would be considered “reasonable” based on this thread which is now backed by studies showing noise and environmental pollution as having long-term, negative side-effects.
On a technical note, Faraday cages are much better at protecting receiving electronics from outside signals than the other way around. Signals have an easier time leaving a Faraday cage than entering.
I wouldn't call it insight, I'd call it prioritization; but perhaps more to the point, you've provided no evidence whatsoever that overclocking a CPU will affect any proportion of population whatsoever (not 50%, not 1%, not 0.01%), at any distance, in any circumstance. And remember, we're not even saying "whether a computer emits EMI". The claim put forward is that overclocking a PC, say from 3ghz to 3.3ghz, has detectable enough negative impact on people other than the owner / in other households, to be part of this discussion.
Certainly, I currently do not believe so and am dismissing your argument for that reason. You are welcome and indeed encouraged to persuade me otherwise :)
As I mentioned in other thread
1. What proportion of people with straight pipes take them on a track or engage in competitive endeavour
2. What proportion take advanced classes and have the skillset to take advantage of increase performance
3. What proportion put their bike on a dyno before and after to have a foggiest clue if straight pipe does anything
4. What proportion of them tunes the rest of their bike to take advantage of new pipe
5. For how many loud cruisers is performance in any way even remotely an actual consideration? You don't buy a cruiser for speed.
Finally, you can get high flow pipes which are quiet. But that's not really the point is it ;)
I actually respect people who say "I got it because it's loud and cool and gives me a rush" because they're at least honest a*oles, more than 98% of people who claim its for performance but don't have a clue - they're fooling themselves as much as others :-/
Maybe the point of loud vehicles is to make you feel better about having a quieter one?
https://youtu.be/ipDmsxQVxIM
if you start looking for it, or rather, start understanding that it's there, you will soon see an alarming number of people doing things solely because it makes them feel like a badass. it is 100% of the entire reason to live, in some people.
In SOMA in San Francisco I'll often hear motorcycles drive by that are so loud they set off car alarms along their path.
And don't get me started on the cost/benefit of car alarms.
As for the cameras, I’ll echo the sentiments of a sibling comment. You don’t want them. I lived in AZ in the mid 00’s when these things were everywhere. They mostly serve to disrupt the natural flow of traffic and caused people to make dangerous sudden stops when they should have proceeded through a yellow lights. Also, many are operated by third parties who take a cut and charge a fee to run them. If they fail to produce enough revenue they become a financial liability to the city, which will either monkey with signal time to increase ticket revenue or simply remove the camera.
To be fair, convertibles are similar. The wind noise of the open air is very loud when moving at speed, so the stereo must be that loud to compensate. There are some setups that will increase/decrease the volume appropriately as the speed changes, but that's not always the case. So as the bike is sitting at a light, the sound is still blaring at the same volume. Maybe the rider is still an asshat for not lowering the volume, but I'd go so far as saying their an asshat for refuting the concept the sound of the ride is the experience by blasting choons.
I'm saying this as someone that had an aftermarket exhaust on all of 3 of my street bikes and one of my dirt bikes.
1. How many aftermarket exhausts actually add meaningful performance
2. How many people actually need / notice / use whatever performance they gain
vs
3. How many people, consciously or not, admittedly or not, just get it for bling and sound
Very few people with aftermarket parts take their bike or car on the track or competition. Very few have training to take advantage of it.
(I don't speak from a theoretical high horse - I spent thousands of dollars myself to add power to my WRX, before I finally realized that 1. Stock car was already faster than myself, and started investing in lessons/training/practice runs, and 2. The hands-down best investment I made in my car was a $200 aftermarket (additional) multi-point seat harness, as it stabilized my body/arms and enabled a much much finer degree of control. If I were to modify a car today, I'd start with suspension/control, not engine/power. For bikes, even more so - every bike I ever owned, from 50 scooter to 400cc supermoto to 500cc adventure and 750cc touring, can do amazing things in hands of a professional rider and can do far far less in my own hands; modifying it for "performance", for 98% of riders, is pointless and we're only fooling ourselves )
With a propeller the engine is not alone in producing noise, the propeller can easily be worse. Especially when you are perpendicular underneath an airplane crossing above.
Still, what I find even worse is that general aviation still uses leaded fuel. I know this is so "esoteric" for most people that few really care, because it is so abstract. As someone who went through a heavy metal diagnosis and chelator treatment (university clinic, lab proven exposure) I know that even the tiniest amounts still have an impact. Not a clinical impact, you are not sick. But your brain and everything works a bit worse. With tiny amounts adding up over decades any small problems you get will be attributed to "age", "stress", "it's in your head". Because while we know, statistically, that there is an impact (that is why the _medical_, threshold for lead, and others, is zero), we are unable to make any useful statements for individuals. Which means for any given person the problem does not exist, and for the population level it remains an abstract threat.
So noise is one thing, but spreading lead over the landscape - yes in tiny amounts, but I believe it still adds up and matters - to me is even more outrageous.
I apologize, for years I spread lead over some, or many?, of you guys here when I flew around the Bay Area. At the time I completely ignored the "LL" on my avgas. Only after my own clinical encounter did I realize what it meant, suddenly it was more than just a technical term.
https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/avgas/
Fun fact: most small GA aircraft still use the exact same engine technology that they were developed with despite needing to occasionally replace the engine. Automobile engines have seen a lot of advances in the last 60 years but any given Cessna 172 you see in the sky is likely still working in exactly the same way as in the 1960's.
I completely agree. My CFI has spent time making sure I understand how to reduce noise impacts of my flying. I live out in the hills which means planes and motorcycles are the only noise intrusions I get on a consistent basis. I wish I could do more for the noise issue as a pilot.
As for the lead issue, I had a small crush on an experimental that is being developed. The company is using a brand-new engine that can technically burn mogas (Motor Vehicle Gas) but the wings are constructed such that putting any ethanol in the tank is a severe safety issue. This combined with the fact that 100LL and Jet Fuel (diesel) are usually the only two fuels available, it seems like a lock-in for more lead consumption.
While there is some good news in the lead/noise department, it's not taking hold as much as I think it aught to: there are electric trainer aircraft produced now that provide very low operating costs, much less noise and release no lead. Unfortunately, I was reading that the performance characteristics make them a less desirable training aircraft than a Cessna 172 so adoption is slow.
Question for parent: I know the FAA's avgas initiative has been around for a while, do you know of any significant progress they have made in the area?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipDmsxQVxIM
I see a few posts now that I know what to search for that it "relieves strain on wrists and arms", but honestly, I think standard riding position (city / adventure / touring bikes) has the most natural and relaxed body position overall, as long as you can adjust it to your body size and proportions.
Living by a busy crossroads, I could not agree more!
Loud pipes don’t do squat. All the noise is behind you, no one hears you coming they only hear you going, and at that point they hate you.
Now… I have an admission to make, and public apologies to give. The pipes on my current primary motorcycle are the exact same pipes I had on my previous motorcycle but they are significantly louder and it was way too late to do anything about it that wasn’t going to cost thousands before I realized.
They are not jerk levels loud, but they have enough rumble to them that I essentially do everything I can to idle out of my neighborhood in the morning (I’m a block in from an agricultural road). They don’t really reach “Harley level loud” until I’m at least 85% throttle and on my bike that is basically drag racing level of throttle position.
Here’s the thing- they were incredibly expensive and my bike is completely, _perfectly_, tuned for them with new FI programming, air intake, and full dyno tuning. No accel/decel pops, etc.
So- neighbors, world, I’m truly sorry. When I replace this bike I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Until then, know I feel like a jerk every morning in my new neighborhood basically coasting to the main road.
So if we come across you out on the road we'll know, "Oh, it's that arsehole".
Curious where this idea came from. Some bike riders must also be drivers and it’s very obvious this isn’t true.
Even when emergency vehicles turn on their sirens I can’t tell where they are until I see them when I’m driving.
Over here in France there's such a law too, but from my 2005 car, I cannot hear that noise. I barely hear the loud motorcycles behind me too, FWIW. When I hear them, they're usually up next to me.
When on foot, that's a different story. If there's low to no traffic, having an electric sneak up on you can be destabilizing.
Then again, I also ride motorcycles and remember one day, in a quiet neighborhood, there were three people walking in the middle of the street for some reason and didn't hear my bike, which was loader than the artificial electric car noise. They weren't wearing headphones, and given the time of day were probably not drunk either.
For kids walking to school, people trying to nap, etc, loud exhaust is terrible on the ears and stressful in general. Electric bikes aren’t silent, but the whining noise is much less stressful than combustion engine noise.
It’s obnoxious and nothing else. Our cities and roads are already polluted enough as it is without the rest of the world having to suffer eardrum splitting motorbike exhausts that shake the whole building.
Personally I am in favour of the judicious and summary execution of the death penalty for people who ride incredibly loud motorbikes in built up and residential environments... .
Friend of mine turned in front of a motorcyclist who had loud pipes and was going about 50 in a 25 mph zone. He was complaining the whole time the EMT's were loading him into the ambulance that my friend was at fault because he had loud pipes.
I don't ride but have nothing against motorcyclists. But I wish there was some sort of tracking device that would warn me when they are around.
Last point something my parents warned me about when learning to drive. Not everyone has great eyesight or hearing, especially older people. Also older people often have limited neck mobility.
I also suspect that the bulk of exhaust noise is projected to the rear of the vehicle anyway, which makes it not especially useful as a "safety" feature if you are unsafely driving considerably faster than and weaving through traffic.
How many years have you ridden on the street, I can't count the amount of times I''ve been cut off but a blip on my SC project on a fireblade made people go back into their lane or at least made them aware of me lane splitting in just the last 5 months of riding street again in CA.
Maybe Ireland is different, but I think you have a better argument relying on automated cars saving you then no longer surviving due to a loud pipe.
Then again, Teslas seem to give way despite it's best in class monitoring system.
I'm pretty much over street riding a SS on the street is absurd because of the speeds and ositions you have to be in to ride it adequately to be responsive, so I can't derive much enjoyment of it to justify the risk.
Personally speaking if they decided to build a dedicated Motorcycle lane between at the very edge of the last lane I think that is the real solution, you don't need much more space to do it either.
I absolutely love motorcycles. Sadly, most people into seem to be in the game just for the sound alone. I have very, very strong feelings about the vast majority of this "community" and cannot wait for electric to take over.
Sorry for the rant. I have to endure a lot of racers during all hours. It's hardly pleasent
Also looking forward to ride electric. Currently, the range sadly doesn't enable what I want to do with my bike - ride it out of town, to the mountains, where there is no infrastructure. But hopefully soon. For inner city commuting, electric bikes are already a great fit - prices are the only problem left.
Public sentiment is the way it is because of rampant documented abuses of power, authority, and regression to childish, over simplistic views of their positions and responsibilities.
Safe driving practices are safe. Like knowing the perception psychology that makes it hard for cars to see you and try to counter that.
https://youtu.be/x94PGgYKHQ0
The difference was immediate and extremely noticable, the number of near misses went down a huge amount and the few times people got a little close I could just chuck the clutch in and give it a good rev to scare anyone off.
My biking days are done for now but if I go back I will not be going back quietly.
Almost all affordable cars are not sound proof.*
And from every parked car where a driver has a conversation on speakers I can hear it so well they might as well have had it outside of their car. New Teslas, BMWs.
Louder == I get woken up at 2am
There’s loud, and then there’s the thunderous roar that some of these bikes make because the owner has obvious mental issues.
Here is a video demonstration,
But
> “MOTOROiD, stand up!”
Why do we have to shove the voice assist in every conceivable gadget adding yet another point of failure :-|
https://youtu.be/JmlQSegO5pM Somewhere in there, the results of "Autobots roll out" is extremely satisfying.
My modern BMW is the opposite, but this Yamaha looks like a T1000 on a mission to kill me again.
All hub motored bikes I rode have a very, very strong squat because of hub motor's huge torque.
I don't see how they counter it here.
I seen other EV motorcycles to counter it using parallelogram suspension setup: Kymco F9, Gogogro G1, Sunra Miku Max
I did read in the comments that the range of this bike is probably pretty low so the functionality of the batteries would need to improve before this is practical for long-distance trips. In the absence of improved battery life, my upgrade would not be useful.
It is probably good that I don't design and build things for a living. Some ideas are not worth pursuing.
EDIT: I have thought of another advantage to the anal probe/oxygen generator. In the event of a non-fatal crash where the rider is injured but still has a heartbeat, the anal probe could function to supply continuous oxygen to the body preventing brain and organ damage as long as the oxygen generator functioned and the rider's heart was still beating. Hardening the oxygen generator should be important so that it is shielded from crash damage. This would also negate the need for resuscitation by mouth and in the event the rider's heart stopped, the anal probe could allow rescuers to focus on blood loss/circulation.
With that in mind it should be self-contained and detachable so that it could travel in an ambulance without needing to be removed. That would also make it possible to become a discreet accessory that you would put on (in) before mounting the bike and you could just wear it concealed as you shop, refuel, etc.
Maybe not such a hare-brained idea after all?
I think I read too much.
https://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/yamaha/2022-yamaha-y...
[0] https://barnfinds.com/barn-find-dirt-bike-1991-honda-cub-ez9...
What I am curious about is how it actually rides. The photos and demos all look like they are out of a Boston Dynamics demo, less like they are for a bike you actually get on.
What I don’t like: this thing will be ugly as sin once you make it street legal. Also lack of fenders (which is how you avoid getting mud all over your legs and back).
As a cruiser fan, I can appreciate fast nimble sport bikes, but also can’t wait for someone to come up with an electric equivalent to the R18 or the Honda Rune.