Motorcycle Noise

[astuber]

This morning NPR ran a story about motorcycle noise where many cities are implementing laws aimed at reducing motorcycle traffic. It seems that I am not the only one that hates the Harley sound.

"Dozens of communities are passing noise laws aimed at reducing the rumble of motorcycles. The largest U.S. manufacturer of motorcycles, Harley-Davidson, says it's paying attention to the trend and trying to get riders to go easier on the ears."

One of the dumbest comments came from a woman who had swapped out the stock pipes on her Harley for straight pipes. She claimed that she had made the change to improve safety. She wanted people to hear her coming.

[kdog]

She wanted people to hear her coming.

Then she should leave her bedroom window open.

[nightcrawler921]

Then she should leave her bedroom window open.
They call it the Milwaukee Vibrator for a reason.

[mpillis]

laws to control everything.
Something that someone enjoys but annoys someone else.
We are free???

[gpolakow]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the whole reason the vast majority of people that opt for loud bikes, trucks, cars, etc. has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with wanting to be noticed.

[zippy_gg]

This morning NPR ran a story about motorcycle noise where many cities are implementing laws aimed at reducing motorcycle traffic. It seems that I am not the only one that hates the Harley sound.

"Dozens of communities are passing noise laws aimed at reducing the rumble of motorcycles. The largest U.S. manufacturer of motorcycles, Harley-Davidson, says it's paying attention to the trend and trying to get riders to go easier on the ears."

One of the dumbest comments came from a woman who had swapped out the stock pipes on her Harley for straight pipes. She claimed that she had made the change to improve safety. She wanted people to hear her coming.Several years ago a law was passed in Los Angeles to ban noisy gas blowers used by gardeners. Somehow I still hear the darn things in the yards next door to me. Try working at home and making phone calls while all that racket is going on...
Apparently that matter was dropped because most gardeners in L.A. are Mexicans, and the word "discrimination" made its nasty way to the L.A. Times with stories of poor illegal immigrants working hard to send money to their relatives back home!!! WTF!!! This means that all that money does not make it back to our local economy!!!
If they ban motorcycle traffic because of the noise, then they should go all the way and ban gas powered blowers and chain-saws. Otherwise it is just plain discrimination.

[danbrown]

The EPA has set max decibel ratings for each model year. the people with straight pipes are in direct violation of the law. Why are they allowed to get away with it? Are they better than everyone else? Its going to be comical to hear those people whine when they half to put muffelers on there bikes and DOT approved helmets on there heads.

[bonafidebob]

The AMA seems to be trying to do something here. The last Motorcycle magazine had some bits about working with riders and authorities and providing sound test kits to some places.

I think they're taking a reasonable stance: they fight blanket legislation against riders usually prompted because some bikes are too loud, and they work with riders to try to keep bikes within noise limits.

If you ride like ever cager is actively trying to kill you, then a quiet bike is better. :-)

[brianbeemer]

laws to control everything.
Something that someone enjoys but annoys someone else.
We are free???
You're free to do whatever you like - as long as it doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of my own life, and for those of us with sensitive hearing loud pipes are a REAL PAIN (and I mean that literally). Pipes with no mufflers are ILLEGAL already but the cops don't enforce the law, so what's going to be any different about this proposal?

Same in the UK - db limits that are checked at the MoT test every year. Bikers with loud pipes put a muffler on just to pass the test then revert to illegal stuff again. So, "don't get your knickers in a twist" as this one won't be enforced either.

[hybridcage]

You're free to do whatever you like - as long as it doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of my own life, and for those of us with sensitive hearing loud pipes are a REAL PAIN (and I mean that literally). Pipes with no mufflers are ILLEGAL already but the cops don't enforce the law, so what's going to be any different about this proposal?

Same in the UK - db limits that are checked at the MoT test every year. Bikers with loud pipes put a muffler on just to pass the test then revert to illegal stuff again. So, "don't get your knickers in a twist" as this one won't be enforced either.


Others rights end where mine begin...then WE are free

[brianbeemer]

Others rights end where mine begin...then WE are free
And with 'rights' come 'responsibilities' - but most people seem to forget that part. (No personal comment intended; just a response.)

[Tbird]

I've told this story before on this site...long ago.

Six years back I lived in a gated community that has round the clock security guards posted at the entrance. Next to their guard shack was a sign that read "No motorcycles beyond this point". I asked them "WHY!?!". They said; "They're too noisy!". Other residents were actually renting out storage stalls at a place just outside the community to hold their bikes...pansies I thought! I started pushing back with my, quieter than most cars, BMW LT by riding in despite their attempt to stop me. They would jump in their truck and run me down. I would ask them "where is the discretion and common sense here?". "My motorcycle is much quieter than most trucks and all these damn euro-cars you let in there with their coffee-can exhausts; and a hell of a lot quieter than the neighbor's lawn mowers and weedeaters that wake me each weekend at 7AM".

One day I tired of their harassment and drove up to the sign with a couple of wrenches and took it down as they watched and warned me not to. I took the sign home and shortly thereafter a sheriff deputy showed up to confiscate the sign. I handed it over and he handed over papers with a theft charge at the request of the "community".

Long story...short. I fought the charges and won with only one appearance in court. It cost me nothing. The community was NOT allowed to restrict the roads any longer. The sign has never gone back up, and me and many others now get to enjoy the same rights as anybody else on those "private" (not really) roads!

BTW...I tried to organize all the other riders in the community. They were all pu$$ys to say the least. I had to go it alone.

[tmgs]

This morning NPR ran a story about motorcycle noise where many cities are implementing laws aimed at reducing motorcycle traffic. It seems that I am not the only one that hates the Harley sound.

"Dozens of communities are passing noise laws aimed at reducing the rumble of motorcycles. The largest U.S. manufacturer of motorcycles, Harley-Davidson, says it's paying attention to the trend and trying to get riders to go easier on the ears."

One of the dumbest comments came from a woman who had swapped out the stock pipes on her Harley for straight pipes. She claimed that she had made the change to improve safety. She wanted people to hear her coming.

She was brain washed by ABATE?

[Briantime]

I rode a cruiser (Yamaha) before I bought my K1200LT and I did get slip on Cobra mufflers to get some extra rumble. I must confess, I kind of liked it...at first...I eventually tired of the racket and changed back to the stock mufflers...

Over the weekend I participated in an Autism ride here in Chicago. Riding two abreast, for a while I was next to a Harley that had such LOUD pipes it literally hurt my ears. Every time he cracked the throttle (which was often) I had to bring my had up to cover my ear on that side.

It's always the schmucks that take things to the extremes that ruin it for everyone else but they don't care because they are selfish....umm...schmucks!

[Patric]

I think the punishment for loud pipes should be tide to the hip to drinking & driving . First offence is going to cost you $1,000 & you are going to need a lawyer . Second time and same as the first + JAIL time . If some schmucks muffler falls of his old car , give a worning , But a nice chrome pipe ...strait to jail .Just like they do to the drunk's.... Patric ...

[Patric]

I think the punishment for loud pipes should be tide to the hip to drinking & driving . First offence is going to cost you $1,000 & you are going to need a lawyer . Second time the same as the first + JAIL time . If some schmucks muffler falls of his old car , give a worning , But a nice chrome pipe ...strait to jail .Just like they do to the drunk's.... Patric ...

[mpillis]

How many of you people complaining of loud pipes drove or still drive muscle cars. Did you put a cam in with a cherry bomb or thrush exhaust.
I don't really want answers to who did.

maybe I am just old and believe in letting people live their lives as they wish.
I do understand things such as riding in yellowstone and having the quiet interrupted by a harley now and then. But I also hear the dump trucks or the snow moving equipment in the parks.

Live and let live.

[ldbikin]

I was in Breckenridge, CO for a seminar some years ago...

Kewl, looking forward to peace and quiet up at 10-11k feet in the mountains, etc..

All I could hear all daym week was the friggin reverse beepers on all the daym construction equip building zillion $$ homes that no one lived in most of the time!!

Now thats what drives me nutz, even more so than nasty pipes...which I also don't like much.

not gonna talk about all my old hotrods though, i didn't think they were too bad and always tryed to use quiet mufflers but my SO always thought most of them were fairly loud, used stuff like hemi mufflers, no cherry bombs or thrush, TOO loud!! :eek:

[kdog]

maybe I am just old and believe in letting people live their lives as they wish. ...
Live and let live.

Marc,

Have you ever ridden your bicycle down a quiet country road, only to have the silence shattered by a procession of Harleys with wide open pipes riding right next to your head? Sure, live and let live, as soon as your ears stop ringing. What about my right to live?

How about being woken up from a dead sleep by a HD with wide open pipes going through the neighborhood at 2:00 AM? Live and let live?

Or how about this scenario. A guy on a chopper that won't idle with wide open pipes has to keep reving the engine up so that the bike won't stall. It's a warm day so folks have their car windows down and this clown is working his way through traffic giving everybody a good 150db blast from his pipes. He lane splits to the front of the line and pulls next to woman with a baby in the car seat. VARROOOOOOOMMM!!!!! VAROOOOOOM!!!! The kid's screaming and probably got his ear drums blown out. I wanted to smack that clown hard.

Live and let live!? That's the whole point, Marc. People with loud pipes are interfering with other folks right to live and let live.

More and more we're seeing entire communities banning motorcycles completely because of noise ordinances That means you can't drive there with your LT which is as quiet as any car. But hey, live and let live. Right? :rolleyes:

Your right to live the way you want to live stops when it interferes with other folks ability to live the way they want to live. It's called being a member of society.

-joel

[mpillis]

how about the guy who doesn't smoke or how about the guy who doesn't like fat people or how about the people who don't like my kinda music or my long hair or my choice of religion , etc.. You must wear a helmet, you must wear a seatbelt!!! I do both and I don't need a law to tell me to. I am just getting real tired of losing my identity and my freedoms. If we keep passing laws telling me what I can and can't do, we will just end up as a bunch of goose stepping robots. Way too many laws controlling us free americans in american "society'.
Actually, the loudest noise I heard was when sitting at a stop light and a fire engine went by blowing it's siren and that actually hurt my ears.
I like my Harley! I like putting along daydreaming as I take in the sites and sometimes I like to crack open the throttle.
Have a great day!

[UltraLT]

Maybe all this attention to noise is having some impact on riders. I know several HD riders who have bought new bikes and have no intention of changing the stock pipes. They always have in the past. Amazing.

Ultra LT

[mpillis]

What I have also just recently noticed here in Kentucky where we do not have a helmet law is that I am seeing alot more riders including HD riders wearing full face helmets

[kdog]

how about the guy who doesn't smoke or how about the guy who doesn't like fat people or how about the people who don't like my kinda music or my long hair or my choice of religion , etc..

You can't be serious. If you can't see the different in between those examples and riding around disturbing the peace with wide open pipes, then I feel sorry for you.

-joel

[mpillis]

I typed up 2 responses back but decided not to make it personal.
You express your opinion and I express mine (unless someone else doesn't like my opinion and wants to take it away from me).
Ride safe!

[tkramer]

laws to control everything.
Something that someone enjoys but annoys someone else.
We are free???

It's called noise POLLUTION! :rolleyes:

(Sorry, I'm now guilty of caps pollution).

I enjoy letting my dog crap on public sidewalks. He seems to enjoy it more then I.

"Cleared pipes save flies!"

[grifscoots]

What I think is funny is people. The straight pipe crowd get just as indignant over issues (pick one) when they think they are being impinged on, while impinging on others.

[tmgs]

How many of you people complaining of loud pipes drove or still drive muscle cars. Did you put a cam in with a cherry bomb or thrush exhaust.
I don't really want answers to who did.

maybe I am just old and believe in letting people live their lives as they wish.

I'm the same way, but consideration for others goes a long ways, Noise is a real problem up here in the mountains these days

and yes I had a set of thrush mufflers on a street car, until I learned they were really worhtless and I could afford decent exhaust

the only place for loud is on the race track, it is the ony
place you can get any real usable performance gain out of having loud exhaust and that is UNDER WOT conditions, and only if your a btter driver/rider than the machine you are running

it's been proven way too many times on dyno's

Tom (the having loud stuff days is over for me)

[grifscoots]

I was wondering when a dyno would be brought up. I never could tune a bike out with straight pipes. I've heard folks say they could, but couldn't explain how.

What I used to really love was building a bike and when I sold it I gave them the option of a tuneable pipe or straight. They went straight everytime (which cost me $75 instead of $400).

I have two pictures hanging in my gearage of the last two bikes I built from the ground up. I snapped the shots just before the feller's rode off on them. Both with straight pipes. Here's where the "as is" became important to me in the bill of sale.

[kdog]

What I think is funny is people. The straight pipe crowd get just as indignant over issues (pick one) when they think they are being impinged on, while impinging on others.
Then there's always the loud pipes, little dick theory. http://www.dgrin.com/images/smilies/mwink.gif

[mpillis]

since it is still going on.
We have a place here called Rabbit Hash, Ky. Little general store on the river. It is a motorcycle gathering place about 18 miles from my house surrounded by great roads. It is not bad when people with loud pipes ride inand out of town like normal people. but when the assholes insist on leaving the town by revving real loud and doing a burnout, then I look at the guy next to me and say "I sure am glad he is saving lives". I do not particularly like the loud pipes either. But if someone wants their bike to have loud pipes then fine.
Signs, signs everywhere a sign, taking up the scenery breaking my mind, do this don't do that !!!!

Kdog if you ever get out this way give me a holler and we can do some riding together. Got plenty of room and great roads.
I live in Union, Ky, 2 miles south of Sugartit, 4 miles north of Beaverlick and about 6 miles from Big Bone Lick State park.

[grifscoots]

I rode Harley for 27 years and I have a question for those that still do and ride with straight pipes: What does the straight pipes do for the bike?

[kdog]

since it is still going on.
We have a place here called Rabbit Hash, Ky. Little general store on the river. It is a motorcycle gathering place about 18 miles from my house surrounded by great roads. It is not bad when people with loud pipes ride inand out of town like normal people. but when the assholes insist on leaving the town by revving real loud and doing a burnout, then I look at the guy next to me and say "I sure am glad he is saving lives". I do not particularly like the loud pipes either. But if someone wants their bike to have loud pipes then fine.
Signs, signs everywhere a sign, taking up the scenery breaking my mind, do this don't do that !!!!

Kdog if you ever get out this way give me a holler and we can do some riding together. Got plenty of room and great roads.
I live in Union, Ky, 2 miles south of Sugartit, 4 miles north of Beaverlick and about 6 miles from Big Bone Lick State park.
You're on. Like so many of these conversations, I don't think we're really that far apart in our opinions -- just express them differently. You give a holler too if you're ever out this way as well.

-joel

[early1]

---and have the hearing loss that goes with it.

Not to create more angst, but --this is not about personal freedoms nor the pusuit of happiness.

Anyone who knows me , knows of my libertarian/constitutional views.
This is simply a violation of community standards that the Founding Fathers ,(I dare say) would not support.

Had you (or I ) been in the street making a ruckus, the British damed well better be coming or in the stockade would you have awakened.
(I would wager even now,were you to remain stationary in your neighborhood street and rev those pipes ,the local constabulary would arrive. as well they should.)

This is about civility and with that ,your rights end at other citizens ear drums in this case.

[mpillis]

either way. Always nice to meet fellow motorcyclists!

[brianbeemer]

I rode Harley for 27 years and I have a question for those that still do and ride with straight pipes: What does the straight pipes do for the bike?
Unless you tune the engine appropriately they will reduce the engine's output power..... Not that there's much in a Harley engine anyway :rotf:

[jayjacobson]

...."Dozens of communities are passing noise laws aimed at reducing the rumble of motorcycles. The largest U.S. manufacturer of motorcycles, Harley-Davidson, says it's paying attention to the trend and trying to get riders to go easier on the ears."

One of the dumbest comments came from a woman who had swapped out the stock pipes on her Harley for straight pipes. She claimed that she had made the change to improve safety. She wanted people to hear her coming.
Well the story was ALMOST right! Left out was the part about the custom pipers bent around to face FORWARD. Now, people REALLY hear her.
Then she should leave her bedroom window open.
No, PLEASE don't!
They call it the Milwaukee Vibrator for a reason.
WTMI!
....the word "discrimination" made its nasty way to the L.A. Times with stories of poor illegal immigrants working hard to send money to their relatives back home!!! WTF!!! This means that all that money does not make it back to our local economy!!!....
Hey Gilles, it would be nice if they just stopped "draining" the economy, much less not contributing!

Each child being born ("public" funding/county hospital) costs you $10,000. Each year of school costs you $4,000. Etc., etc.
....Pipes with no mufflers are ILLEGAL already but the cops don't enforce the law, so what's going to be any different about this proposal?....
Yes, Brian, you're so right! Nor will I ever enforce any helmet law, either. It amazes me what people get their panties in a wad over.
...."My motorcycle is much quieter than most trucks and all these damn euro-cars you let in there with their coffee-can exhausts; and a hell of a lot quieter than the neighbor's lawn mowers and weedeaters that wake me each weekend at 7AM"....
Again, it's amazing what people get their panties in a wad over.
....You express your opinion and I express mine (unless someone else doesn't like my opinion and wants to take it away from me)....
Actually, Marc, you didn't know it, BUT your opinion AND your constitutional rights ARE VOID where prohibited by law!