So… you have a motorcyle with an exhaust system deliberately designed to be loud, and yet you can drive it in such a way that it’s perfectly quiet?
I’m curious: a) how is this possible, and b) why would you bother installing loud, after-market pipes if you want to be courteous about noise levels?
(And let’s please dispense with the “loud pipes save lives” thing—first of all it’s bullshit, and second of all, any loud-pipe aficionado with enough candor will admit that they have loud pipes because they like the image/enjoy pissing people off, and that the “save lives” mantra is just an excuse they give to the uninitiated who don’t share the same mindset.)
The full-face helmet fits with the “image” of riding a sportbike. But it does not fit with the “image” of riding a Harley. I think everyone agrees that a full-face helmet is the safest type of helmet, but I don’t think I have ever seen anyone on a Harley (or any other type of cruiser bike) with a full-face and rarely even a 3/4. If a cruiser guy is wearing a lid, it’s usually the half-helmet kind, which covers only the top of the head. But it’s far more popular to just not wear a helmet at all, on a Harley. I mean, it’s part of the appeal of that specific bike.
On the other hand - while there are lots of frat guys out on CBRs and 919’s, wearing flip flops and tank tops and basketball shorts - really serious sport-bike guys will wear full leathers and full face helmets, and they never have to feel self conscious about it because 1. they know that they have the maximum amount of protection, and 2. it’s the mark of a serious sportbike rider.
OK, so the point of this thread was to dispute that loud pipes save lives. Then, for 3 pages, posters come in and complain about how annoying those pipes are. If the point of loud pipes is to get noticed, and being annoyed by = getting noticed, I don’t see where the failure is.
From my own experience, I’ll say that loud pipes are beneficial. I used to have a Honda CX500. It was very quiet. I’d get a car pulling out in front of me at an intersection at least once a week. This is not an exaggeration. I replaced that bike with my current one. It’s a Honda Shadow - which is a V-twin cruiser much like a Harley. It had aftermarket pipes on it when I bought it. It is louder than stock, but certainly not ear-shattering.
Since I’ve been riding the Shadow, it is a rare occasion that I have to avoid a car that didn’t see me. To be fully honest, the Shadow is physically bigger than the CX500 and it has more chrome which could add to the visibility. So it could be those factors that add to my noticeability. It could be the loud pipes. It could be a combination of all three.
But, it is my life I’m worried about. And if it’s only one time that my loud pipes caught an inattentive driver’s attention than it is worth it.
Oh, and for the poster that said that they had never seen a cruiser rider with a full face helmet, I rode my Shadow to work today and my full face helmet is sitting here next to me.
So going without a helmet is done for style, but loud pipes are done for safety? Obviously this doesn’t apply to you, brewha, but I rather doubt that there’s only a little overlap between the riders who go without a helmet and those who put on loud pipes.
Oh, wait. Helmets obstruct sound, constrict vision, or are too hot, so it’s better not to wear them. Also, headlights are dangerous in the day, because if you have the sun behind you you’re not a silhouette but part of the light instead. There’s plenty of rationalizing going on, but I don’t really buy any of it. ‘Loud pipes make people more aware of you’ is just the baton twirler in that long parade of justifications for acting like a dumbass on a bike.
Ya know who I hate. Those fucking Honda Civic drivers. Every last one of those inconsiderate pricks should be drug out in the street and shot. What, with their coffee can mufflers, low profile tires and flashy, annoying paint jobs. They are always racing around the streets and driving like jackasses. I hate them all - I hate them almost as much as I hate those fucking Impala drivers. Those inconsiderate pricks with their booming system and hydraulic suspensions. All of those stupid fucking Impala drivers are always bouncing their cars down the street and blaring that annoying gansta rap. I hate those guys.
I think I’ve only made one stereotyped anti-Harley post in this thread, and that last one wasn’t it. I for one am not talking about those damn Harley riders with their loud pipes, I’m talking about those damn loud pipes. Show me a riced-up Civic and I’ll laugh at it too, but I’ve got nothing against non-dumbass motorcycle riders or Civic drivers.
One of my brother’s friends—a leathery hick who appears to be somewhere between 50 and 110 years of age—proudly rides a loud-pipe Harley with “ape hangers.” He wrecked a previous Harley in a near-fatal, single vehicle accident on the interstate that left him in a coma for several days. Despite nearly dying (or perhaps because he didn’t quite die), he rails against helmet laws and insists that one day he’s going to move to another state where he can putter around with what’s left of his brain fashionably unshielded.
I have paradoxical feelings about helmet laws: I think choosing to ride without one is the absolute nadir of human stupidity, and yet I firmly believe that the type of people who think it’s a swell idea should be encouraged to ride helmetless, as often as possible, preferably at dangerously high speeds on slick, steep, mountainous roads.
As someone who has spent most of his working life in ear protectors of one sort or other, I’ve never failed to hear audible equipment alarms.
Muffling the normal background makes it easier to hear the abnormal and many times you can hear something going bad long before it gets to the alarm stage.
BTW, with two loud AC chillers going, I can still hear sirens and car horns on the street outside my building while on the operating floor in my ear plugs.
If I might be allowed a slight hijack here, I’d include in this pitting the unnecessarily noisy pickup truck diesel exhaust. The noise level of a large Cummins-powered, trailer-mounted emergency generator at load is about half that of the average Cummins-powered Dodge Ram at idle. In fact, the generator’s cooling fan is noisier than the the engine exhaust in many cases.
Because the loud pipes are annoying to those beside the road, or on the road beside or behind the rider. Ahead of the rider, not so much - and as quoted earlier in the thread that’s where almost all the danger comes from.