The most effective thing a biker can do to improve safety is STAY THE HELL OUT OF PEOPLE’S BLIND SPOT. And don’t split lanes at 75 mph, please. Not that you would ever do this, SHAKES, but I find it hard to believe that anyone who is passing cars in between lanes at that speed is really very concerned for their safety.
Hmmm…Create a public nuisance in order to maybe get a couple extra h.p. - pretty much the definition of self-centered, don’t you think?
Sorry, but I have to cast my vote for “annoy everyone”. If you don’t realize that you are annoying people, then you obviously aren’t in touch with reality.
I’m sure it annoys some people, but certainly not everyone! Especially those who ride Harleys!!! (Nyah! Nyah!) You can’t please everyone. And as long as the police don’t give tickets for it, it’s going to continue.
SHAKES and EchoKitty, may I suggest investing in an air horn instead? You’ll have the noise when you really need it and won’t be bothering anyone when you don’t.
Louder pipes certainly do increase the noticability of motorcycles, and there are certainly enough zoned out drivers out there that it’s not a bad idea to make yourself more noticable.
That being said, however, a slightly louder than stock muffler is nearly as effective as an over the top window rattling muffler of doom. It’s also a lot more considerate of other drivers and residents who happen to live around the area where you’re riding.
However, my gripe is not just with HD riders. These “Import Tuners” with their giant trumpet exhausts that sound like god’s original spec for a goliath bumble bee, the chollos who feel the need to blast tejano at 200 decibels out of their lowered pickup trucks and the hip-hop hoseheads who think that jacking the bass and making the windows rattle in MY car while sitting next to them at a light is the epitome of cool get even greater contempt because there is no justification whatsoever for their annoying noise.
When I was growing up just over the Ohio line from Ft. Wayne, IN, the city put a noise ordinance in effect that went something to the effect of “If you can hear it 50 feet away, it’s too loud.” They enforced it pretty religiously when I was growing up; don’t know if they still do or not. At any rate, it was pretty effective for the most part. While I’m not a big fan of regulation or laws in general, if people can’t be mature enough to not be an overcompensating pin-dick, I can’t gripe about laws like this too much.
A bunch of these guys once parked their Caddilac across from my apartment while testing the subwoofers they had evidently just installed in their trunk. I got 'em back though, plugged my stereo into my PC then set up my PC speakers (and subwoofer turned up to max) in my window. Turned on the stereo just in time to hear Stairway to Heaven. I couldn’t bring myself to turn up the volume past halfway for fear of blowing out the speakers yet it was still louder than that Caddy and I never saw it again. Rattle my apartment windows, eh? Right back atcha!
Yeah, it makes ‘ya long for the good old days of the early Sixties, when all the bikers just gang raped and pulled teeth out of strangers’ mouths in bars. :rolleyes:
chubbs, someone posted a while back about an open-piped Harley going past at closing time. Was this you? If the bike goes past at a regular time try calling the cops. They might be willing to do a stakeout. You might also ask your neighborhood association if you have one.
Jeff Olsen and FallenAngel:
I have to agree with the both of you. It is amazing how bass can penetrate through every possible man made structure: brick, plastic, wood, earplugs and even force fields.
There is nothing more disturbing then sitting on your couch, trying to read a book and having your butt start to vibrate because some dickflake in his I-Rock has the bass cranked up to shaken not stirred levels.
Talk about invoking the spirit! I can’t tell you how many times I have plotted to create a missile launcher that blasts flip-flops and hair curlers at these urban assault vehicles. Put a fork in me, I am done with this nonsense.
I think the next time my couch tries to get me off without my consent, I am going to paint my face blue and run outside screaming, “freedom” at these insensitive morons. Yes, I’ll run after them with a broom in one hand while throwing Cornnuts at their cars with the other.
Maybe, I can frighten them out of my neighborhood and hope that my husband doesn’t have me commited throughout this little experiment either.
Motorhead chiming in.
I love bikes. I’ve owned 'em, ridden 'em, modified 'em. Never owned a Harley though, but know lots that do.
And I hate loud-pipe pencil-dick bastards that not only put the shortest, most open exhaust they can find, but also ride the sumbitch at 4,000 rpm in 2nd gear to get the best “sound”.
Loud pipes save lives? Oh, horseshit. Same can be said for flashing lights, yellow emergency beacons, and day-glo orange reflective vests. Oh, excuse me, those aren’t cool so we’ll conveniently ignore them in favor of audio effluent that annoys FAR more than it supposedly “saves”.
This is the same thought process that tells you not to wear a helmet, because the helmet can, in certain cases, cause certain injuries. Admittedly I’d rather not see any legislation requiring helmet use (like seatbelts and daytime running lights, it should be suggested and encouraged but not mandated and enforced) but to claim you don’t want to wear it due to the statistically insignificant chance of a few types of injuries, as opposed to the far larger number of more common injuries it CAN prevent, is pure and simple horseshit.
More horsepower? More horseshit. Might have been true twenty years ago before we discovered the principles of exhaust gas reversion, chamber scavenging and volumetric efficiency, but today? Chances are a team of engineers spent four thousand man-hours on some powerful computers designing that exhaust system to provide the best power at the widest forseeable RPM range, the best torque numbers, and the best desired sound.
Aftermarket exhausts almost always take from one trait to add to another these days- Sure, it gives you more high-RPM horsepower, but usually at the expense of low-RPM torque. Or vice-versa.
Loud pipes are the equivalent of aural graffitti, plain and simple. They’re expressing to the world “HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ME!” Period, end of story. Everything else is an after-the-fact excuse.
:::Sheesh::, would you folks go check some facts.
Pipes are designed at the factory to produce the most HP they can and stay within EPS standards, or they can’t sell the things.
Like anyone else, folks get cranky when those who are not doing it pass the laws on others. ( helmet issues)
Straight pipes are no HP producing, they are noise producing.
There are a lot of after market pipes that do make much more power than stock because they do not meet EPA standards. They are not straight pipes which make mostly noise.
You ears and body suffer much more damage for 10 seconds beside the chest caving low Freq. of the sub-woofer than from a motorcycle.
The most common reason for motorcycle FATALITIES is
The noise from straight pipes is not bad if ridden properly, I do it all the time. A lot of guys don’t.
So, take my pipes because they annoy you. Fine. You will run a governor so that your car can not speed because speeding annoys me. And I have the law about speeding and it’s dangers on my side.
Remember rules are double edged. Be real careful what you wish for.
You ready for it to be illegal to have a radio in an convertible? Noise laws are not just applied to motorcycles ya know.
Lady above noted what she remembered for the past. Think about what would happen to you life. No more aircraft, to much noise or all airports will be like Denver. Bwhahahah
If you have a guy that wakes you up only on Sunday at an unreasonable time and have not talked to him, then called the law on him, what are you gripping about? You are just bitching for the fun of it. The guy is breaking all kinds of apartment rules, laws of the city and the state. Do something about it. Call a cop.
Do not approach this individual in an open manner with a polite request. He is prolly just like you and will not respond with reason. :: sheesh ::::::
That’s a really mature attitude: “Nyah! Nyah! - we’re gonna keep annoying people because we can.” Why am I not surpised?
I’m not surprised, either.:smack:
WTF? 1:30am, I’m in bed, and I’m supposed to get up, get some clothes and shoes on, run downstairs, out the door and chase this guy up the street?
Onus is on me, eh?
Grow up.
Damn right! Rock on! Loud enough to scare those damned weirdos!
Hell yeah! I damn near freeze my ass off, sometimes. It’s been near fifty recently, but we’ve had Californian-scaring temperatures for the past few weeks. Keeps the bugs and vermin away.
YEAH! He’s the voice of a new generation! He’ll never die!
If you’re going to whine, pick something that isn’t someone’s point of pride. Being a principled loudmouth still makes you a goddamned loudmouth.
What’s more disturbing that a mobile boombox parked outside your window? Downstainrs neighbors with a home stereo that produces the same effect and a property manager who refuses to acknowledge those tenants are in violation of their lease. I had my stereo loud once in retaliation to that Caddy and am asked to move out in two months. Yeah, right, whatever.
Oh, please. People whine about other peoples pride all the fucking time. Just as it is your right to chose to be annoying and be a prick, it is the persons right to bitch about you being so. I don’t have a problem with Harley riders, I have a problem with dickheads that think because it is THEIR pride, they can do what they want to do and not get bitched at for it.
GusNspot wrote:
It is not necessarily about passing laws on other people. Bikers wearing helmets isn’t about being considerate to other people, it is about keeping your ass safe. Yes, it is stupid to be a law, let the stupid fucks that don’t wear one die in a wreck. Survival of the smartest.
Good comparison asshole. I don’t blare my speakers, thumping my bass and destroying my eardrums. I would imagine alot of people that complain about muffler noise do not either. Find another straw man.
Yeah, because speeders passing me by rattle my windows while I am trying to sleep at 4 in the morning. :rolleyes:
Sure, speeding is Illegal, and govenors would be great. However, speeders and annoying assholes that like to be as fucking loud as possible are two seperate issues.
No, because people listening to a radio, responsibly, in a convertable, don’t rattle windows at 3:00am waking babies, children, and people that are trying, and need sleep. If they blare the radios above the accepted decible level, then yeah, they should be reprimanded, and have a spot saved for thier annoying asses.
Oh, so not liking loud assholes and complaing about it isn’t reasonable? Hell, this topic is one of the most reasonable rants I have seen in awhile. You don’t hang out in the pit often do you?
Bikers may have a reputation for being tough guys, but that doesn’t mean that they are all violent prone idiots that will pull a chain out on you for asking him to keep the noise down. I would tell him I will call the cops on him, if he came at me with violent intent, I would throw his fat, out of shape wanna be a prick ass all over the parking lot. You don’t have to be a biker to be a tough guy.
This is bullshit. The OEM exhaust engineers spent their time designing a muffler that provides a good compromise between acceptable, legal noise levels, cost-effectiveness, and power tuning. The difference is that the first two imperatives are probably foremost to the OEM designer. An aftermarket exhaust does away with the first two imperatives, and allows the aftermarket exhaust manufacturer’s engineers to concentrate on the third. HDs are still relatively simple machines, compared to imports, and can still benefit from basic hotrodding techniques.
My husband owns a Harley, I ride, and I find really loud pipes annoying ass hell. His bike is stock and has no pipe modifications and it’s normal loud- you can hear him, but you don’t cover your ears when he goes by or when he gets home. He borrowed a bike over the summer with modified pipes and the first thing I said when he got off of it was that if he EVER did that to his pipes, he wouldn’t be riding it in a neighborhood I lived it. Obnoxious and silly, IMHO. (I’m talking loud as in "HOLY FUCK, what was THAT when he pulled up. It sounded like a garbage truck or something)
Zette
Waht Zette said. I quite like the sound of a standard Harley. In fact, I really like it. What I’m talking about are the bikes that I can hear coming for miles, and when they go past, the windows rattle, the glassware in my kitchen cupboards starts to play music, the cat runs interstate, and car alarms go off.
I live in the fourth townhouse in a block of six which is set edgeways to the road. I’m not close to the street, and there’s lots of solid brick building and tree cover between me and the street, and we have no windows which face that direction. Yet, if these machines are loud enough that, with all my windows and doors closed, I can’t hear the TV, let alone have a conversation, then something is definitely wrong with the laws that let them do it. These are street legal machines, and as such they can ride past hospitals, retirement homes, you name it. I really don’t get it.
Big fucking deal. Loud subwoofers are illegal too.
Exactly. Noise doesn’t matter, so its only function is to violate the law in the most annoying way possible.
You are aware that basically every town in the country has noise ordinances, right? According to one guy around here, they’re even going hardcore on fining and even confiscating loud bikes in New Hampshire. Could be a rumor, but the point remains: just because you get away with it (just like the speeders), doesn’t make it ok.
It’s already illegal to have a radio that’s too loud in any sort of vehicle. I think around my old home, the law was “audible from 50 feet away” is in violation, but I don’t remember exactly. Point being, loud pipes do violate laws, but it’s difficult–unless somebody is very regular about their riding time/route–to get anything done. It’s just like any other nuisance, and it helps to reinforce the anti-biker crap that the very person demolishing your inner ear will rail against.