We understand locking posts is never popular, but our entire queue has been R3 (short answer) violations for almost a full day now, mostly commenting on the ratio of genital size to volume in five words or less.
It is entirely on purpose. Period. There are motorcycles that you do not hear at all, beyond an expected normal sound. They do not sell as well or have difficulty modifying them to be loud.
I lived in South Africa until the end of the World Cup, then moved to Scotland. I can't decide what annoys me more: Vuvuzelas or Bagpipes on every street corner.
I'd guess vuvuzela.
Maybe it's different there, but by the time they reached the states there was nothing musical about them. Like blasting an air horn.
A bagpipe *can* actually be a musical instrument.
[This woman is a pretty good player](https://www.youtube.com/@PiperAlly). She covers a bunch of popular songs, and was even on tour with an electric violin player last year.
I once had to explain to a music director (ETA: in the US) why he absolutely did NOT want two highland pipers to "accompany" an indoor choral performance in a small theater. I talked him down to one set of pipes, but he still worried he should have gone for two. After the first rehearsal with the piper in the theater, he thanked me.
I parked in a bad part of town with my bagpipes in the back seat. When I came back there were two bagpipes.
Scottish definition of a Gentleman - Someone who knows how to play the bagpipes but doesn't.
Why do bagpipers march when the play. Even they are trying to get away from the sound.
Difference between a trampoline and bagpipes? You take your shoes off to jump on a trampline.
(All that said, I love the bagpipes!)
They'll also often wear black leather or dark denim, despite studies showing that wearing high-vis colors results in noticeably fewer accidents.
They'll _also_ not see any contradiction between saying "drivers should be able to hear other vehicles on the road!", while literally sitting on top of the engine that makes it impossible for _them_ to hear anything else going on. (Not to mention the hearing issues it can cause, which leads to even _less_ awareness down the line)
If you talk to even a few bikers here and there, you'll eventually find someone who will admit that it's all about looking and sounding cool.
Funny how looking and sounding cool is a hair away from simply wanting to be obnoxious and inconsiderate. Actually, now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense.
I think Chelsea Peretti had a standup joke about how getting a motorcycle amounts to a more expensive version of running down the street naked and banging some pots and pans.
(This was in the context of her buying a motorcycle.)
Pretty much. [South Park](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ipDmsxQVxIM&pp=ygUXc291dGggcGFyayBoYXJsZXkgYmlrZXI%3D) did a decent take on [Harley riders.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui6HNB-1J20&pp=ygUXc291dGggcGFyayBoYXJsZXkgYmlrZXI%3D)
A co-worker was tired of his neighbor coming home at 2 am on school/work nights with his straight pipe Harley, so he had a talk with the man. Nothing changed.
There's a single mother on my street with a mute autistic child that's like 8.
He freaks out when they rev up at the stop sign for no other reason than try and virtue signal how cool they are to other assholes.
Seriously will fuck the kid *up(edit)* for hours and he'll have a freak out and there's not much the poor woman can do for him.
Sometimes they ride up and down my street around the block and back just to go put it back in there garage.
Like wtf is that? You get your balls filled with that little parade everyday?
Meanwhile an 8yr old autistic child is literally shaking in fear for hours so you could bust a nut?
I love bikes but I fucking hate the douchebaggery that "biker culture" maintains.
Just assholes. Period.
Yeah, for neurodivergent folks, as loud as those things sound to neurotypicals they sound louder to us. And even louder for the ASD 2 and 3 folks. The amygdala doesn't filter out as much information.
It's like every brain cell is screaming that there's an emergency and our autonomic nervous system is freaking out and it actually hurts because it actually sounds even louder to our brains. Imagine if every human had a sensory input sensitivity dial, and some people's were turned down a little and some were turned up a little. Then you had this group that just had it turned *way* up, and then they had to live in a world of people with theirs turned way down and thus had things louder and brighter and smellier to compensate. And it's so overwhelming and there's no way to get it all to quiet down and it hurts and there's nothing left you can do but scream and hide and rock back and forth holding your ears and eyes because it's all so overwhelming and painful. Welcome to autism.
For what it's worth, if that kid could get some noise cancelling earbuds or headphones they're a lifesaver. It doesn't make the hypermasculine bikes completely quiet, but it helps so so much.
For me it's less about the volume and more about the cacophony. Noise cancelling helps some but not nearly enough. Entertainingly, white noise generators have some of the same cacophony that I have trouble dealing with.
As someone with autism, I don’t like noise canceling headphones. They feel “loud” if you know what I mean. Over time, the “nothing noises” get louder and louder (I’m assuming it’s just me hearing my own body) and I have to take them off because it’s too much. But I’ve always been extremely picky about my hearing and my ears and don’t like things covering my ears/in my ears in the first place, so that could be why.
I hate that phrase. It’s just a catchphrase they tell themselves to justify the obnoxiously loud pipes. There is no correlation between motorcycle exhaust volume and safety.
Just say you like the engine noise.
My wife sometimes listens to rap in the car and I know she's coming home before I can actually see the car
She should use this line too. Saved many lives looking out for her in the car.
Sounds like a guy I used to work with. The tunes would start blasting when he started the car. Saw him one day cruising in the left lane with a wailing ambulance 3 feet off his back bumper. Turn your radio down Nick!
As someone that rides motocycles. Cars very commonly miss bikes. I've almost T-boned 3 cars one summer because they pulled out of parking lots or round abouts infront of me. (I drive a Lime green motorcycle so it doesn't blend in) However, I don't think that justifies making your bike audible from 2 miles away. I hate loud vehicles in general.
You can’t even hear loud pipes quick enough in a car if you’re moving highway speed. You’ll only hear them once they’re right behind you. The only place that I’ve actually noticed loud bikes before they came by is in stopped traffic. Then the exhaust noise doesn’t have to get loud enough to overcome the road noise before you notice it. My bike sounds like a lawnmower below ~6-7k and that’s how I like it. I just ride like I’m invisible
Yes, this.
On my last bike, one time I noticed someone 3 cars ahead of me notice me from the sound of my obnoxiously loud exhaust against the cement barrier in the right hand lane. One time. More often than not it actually triggered douchebags into doing dumb streetrace crap around me instead.
It did shit-all for my safety, so now I ride an overpowered Japanese sewing machine with a stock exhaust, cruise control, and one of the brightest helmets I could find, and I haven't had any increase in near-death situations.
The dudes who blast their radios louder to hear over their loud pipes make me cringe so hard.
Humans evolved with very good colour stereoscopic vision which is very good at estimating distances and speed. Our hearing however is only fair to middling and poor at estimating the direction and distance of a noise. Add in the difference between light speed and sound speed I’m going to call BS on the people saying a loud exhaust keeps them safe. Better to be more visible than louder I reckon.
As someone that rides motocycles. Your tailpipes are facing away from other cars, directing sound behind you while you're going 60+ mph. By the time someone hears your motorcycle, you're already infront of that person.
Same! If it was all about visibility and safety, wearing orange reflective hi vis gear and designing/modifying motorcycles specifically to be more visible would be the norm.
But it's not the norm because it doesn't look cool. Loud pipes are cool, never actually was about safety
That's such bull shit. Safe bikers/safe drivers saves lives. From my experience the louder the bike the bigger the ass hole who doesn't follow the laws or consider their own safety or those of other drivers.
Edit: spelling
That was disproved way back in the 70s by the Hurt Report, as well just science on how motorcycles usually get in crashes from the front and the Doppler effect.
Never saw the show, but helmet-/-helmet. The guys riding with pudding bowls on their heads only help by making the clean-up of the aftermath a little bit easier by keeping all the parts of their brains in one spot.
I got passed on the shoulder of a dangerous road on my commute the other day by a biker without a helmet, pulling out of a bar on the outside of a big curve in the road.
It was literally next to a makeshift roadside shrine for a biker who was hit doing the same thing a year ago, with the words, "Share the road."
I nearly got hit by an Uber Eats delivery guy riding a motorcycle on the goddamn sidewalk. I saw another one riding at speed the wrong way down a protected bike lane. If you told me that motorcycles have a disproportionate amount inconsiderate, stupid, entitled assholes as drivers, I wouldn't be surprised.
My *favorite* question I got asked in a motorcycle training/license course was, "You've all heard this, right?" Class nods. "Have you ever *looked* for the motorcycle?
*cue 20 people realizing that they haven't ever looked for the motorcycle.*
"So, that's bullshit. Loud pipes just piss off your neighbors."
Had a friend buy a Harley about 20 years ago in Colorado. She took it in to the dealer and put in a work order labeled internally as "rear suspension alignment" which was code for "modify the muffler to make it loud".
I am looking at a reel on Facebook right now where the person is taking the baffles out of their muffler
There are a hundred people arguing that "loud pipes save lives"
The whole thing is ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as the people arguing EV will get people killed because they're quiet, but still pretty ridiculous.
They want it loud for the attention, just like the cars.
Yeah that loud pipe save lives is utter bullshit. I've been a driver for 40 years and I've never heard a motorcycle unless they were right next to the driver's window. Even then, between the air rushing, the tire noises, the music, the heater or AC, I barely hear them at all.
Not to mention that
1. Loud pipes damage the hearing of the rider, making them less aware of their own surroundings.
2. Loud pipes engender panic and malice in drivers, endangering *all* motorcycle riders, not just the assholes with loud pipes.
There is no safety argument for "loud pipes save lives" that wouldn't be *better* served by a loudspeaker constantly blaring Baby Shark, but you don't see bikers doing that.
My first 4-cyl bike came with a pretty loud pipe. I felt like everyone is swearing at me for being obnoxiously loud (and they probably were). Reverted it to factory exhaust within a week.
The “loud pipes” startle me! One of these days it’s going to cause me to swerve in the wrong direction. If they actually wanted to be safe they’d wear helmets, and be predictable - it’s erratic driving that causes nearly all accidents.
If loud pipes actually saved lives, then we should just take it to the logical extreme and equip every motorcycle with *amplified* exhaust systems. Why rely on the natural noise of exploding gasoline when you can double, triple, quadruple those decibels? All in the name of "Safety"!
If loud pipes really saved lives, insurance companies would incentivize (or require) riders to get them. Or require manufacturers to sell them pre-equipped.
If loud pipes really saved lives - we would muffle the ambiguous engine noise and add a sound system that made a more easy to detect and orient sound.
Like when large trucks backup and it says "Caution - turning"
A neighbor seems likely. Some guy who has had it with his neighbor cold starting a harley at 5am and idling it for 20 mins every morning.
https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/comments/8vpjwx/senseless_murder_over_exhaust/
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/crime/court-docs-contradict-vancouver-homeowner-arrested-shooting-man/283-00af48c5-fe33-4d17-aac7-3679d4684f7a
What’s even worse is when some jackass blasts past you and so you don’t hear them until you see them in your peripheral vision. Scares the crap out of me, for some reason.
Worse, if a loud chopper is next to me I will speed up to get the blast of the dick cannon away from my car/ears. Being put closer to my blind spot is WORSE.
Yup, somehow that crowd also seems to be the ones not wearing proper gear, or at least there's a VERY strong correlation in my experience. If you're so concerned with your own safety, why aren't you taking the most effective precautions?
Also, the only study that looked at accident rates and modified exhausts was the Hurt Report which showed that bikes with modified exhausts are MORE likely to be in an accident, not less. Obviously, it didn't conclude that modified exhaust systems were the cause of the accidents. I believe that those who want louder exhausts are often the ones riding more aggressively and that's the cause of the accidents. It does however show that having loud exhausts does not increase rider safety.
Personally, when a bike flies up and blasts their exhaust at me out of nowhere, it startles the shit out of me and does nothing to tell me where they are. I have never felt *more* likely to accidentally hit someone than in those moments.
It's not always attention. I'd love to drive around in a car with a loud exhaust because it sounds cool and I would have fun doing it.
I don't do it, though, because I'm not a dick.
I ended up in Washington DC on Memorial Day one year along with 30,000 motorcyclists. My God. Everywhere you went it was so loud. I noticed that many of the riders had ear plugs in and my first thought was: You don't even want to hear your own comically loud motorcycle, what makes you think I want to hear it?
Well there are quiet motorcycles that do sell very well. It’s mainly the Harley cruiser crowd that wants loud motorcycles.
Harley motorcycles are engineered to produce as much noise as possible w/o the unwanted horsepower byproduct.
>Harley motorcycles are **engineered**
\* snort \*
No they're not.
I'm pretty sure they just dig giant lumps of iron out of the ground and slap some wheels on. The tech is from the 1920s or some shit.
Except for the V-Rod, as far as I'm aware. Porsche helped them with some stuff on that to make an actual performance engine.
They’re just usually not enforced. I’ve been riding nearly 30 years and have never seen one of my friends get pulled over for their straight piped bullshit. I like a little bit of vroom but quality > quantity.
It's *wild* that this shit is legal. It's so loud for no good reason, and just causes noise pollution for everybody else nearby. It's way over the safe decibel levels too. Just absurd.
My BMW motorcycle is nearly silent compared to any straight-piped V-twin motorcycle.
Someone else has commented already on the "loud pipes save lives" mantra.
I lean more towards the "everyone is out to kill me so I need to be overly cautious" mantra myself, but to each their own.
(Side note: ask any fire truck driver how they feel about "loud pipes" or "bright flashy lights" making it so other drivers see you and don't pull out in front of you.)
I think they are implying people still pull out in front firetrucks despite the lights and sounds making them very noticable. Some people are oblivious enough.
And here I was reading it more as “firefighters have to respond to scenes where riders with loud bikes have been struck by another vehicle in spite of those loud pipes”.
I was thrown off by the flashy lights bit after that.
As a motorcyclist myself, science tells us that loud pipes don't save lives. They just piss everyone off.
The pipes project the sound backwards, so when a bike with loud pipes overtakes you, you still don't hear them until they get in front of you, unless they are deafeningly loud.
It does depend a lot on how quiet the car is as well I guess.
I used to drive an ambulance, even with flashing lights and sirens people will straight up ignore you or not notice you at all.
A loud motorcycle isn’t likely to be noticed by those people, who are probably the most likely to hit a motorcyclist while not paying attention.
I volunteer with a rescue squad. Everyone has a rush of shit for brains when you’re behind them and running emergency traffic. My favorite was a guy who was towing a farm implement. He stopped dead on top of a hill in a 55 mph zone so we could pass…when we couldn’t see over or around him to do so.
What they’re trying to say is in response to “loud pipes save lives” which, to use a fire truck as an example, doesn’t seem to be true since with how loud and flashy a fire truck is compared to any motorcycle, you’d expect no one to pull out in front of fire trucks if “loud pipes save lives” is true. And since people still pull out in front of fire trucks, they’re suggesting that loud pipes don’t do much to save lives.
People do still pull out in front of Fire Trucks, but I would be willing to bet less people pull out in front of a fire truck with lights and sirens running. There will always be a wildcard when human behavior gets thrown into the mix.
Or people need to stop looking at their damn phone while driving
>I lean more towards the "everyone is out to kill me so I need to be overly cautious" mantra myself, but to each their own
One biker once told me (to a new driver) always look at the wheels, rims will tell you if the car is going to move
Wise words saved me few times
Definitely pride. I was a dumbass who would short-trip home in shorts and trainers sometimes (and helmet). Still dumb - and not on a Beemer. Had to sell my bike at one point and changed to an older BMW car. Way less safety gear for a commute.
When you're ready for that bike, you're ready to do it right.
Your mantra is the only mantra one needs. No one is paying attention. No one signals lane changes. Everything comes at you faster than it should because everyone is hard on the gas and hard on the brakes.
I have an older Harley roadbike, and it is muffled about right. If you really step on it it's definetly heard, but regular riding or idle is pleasent. Having driven in the Metro area for 30 years, I a mixed on the 'loud saves lives'. Such noise has checked some of my lane movements when I wasn't aware a biker was around, but more than equally, bikers were making moves in traffic that they shouldn't be doing; if anything, in some cases, they were trying to freeze me out of a lane of travel. It's hard enough trying to stay safe as it is. It is scary how close people tail my Harley in traffic or near stop lights. It's a 1000 lbs bike and you have to have room to weave a bit due to road conditions and coming to a full stop or start.
Every single time you hear an extremely loud motorcycle, its owner has deliberately modified it to be that loud. There are very, very few exceptions.
Even superbikes with 210 horsepower come from the factory with fairly quiet exhaust.
I had a bone stock 2011 Kawi Ninja 1000 that had a valved exhaust. If you drove it with relatively normal throttle rates, it was mild sounding. However, if you completely opened the throttle, it was SO LOUD. I think it essentially became a straight pipe at full throttle.
Not sure how that's legal from a factory bike. IIRC there are federal regulations on exhaust decibels.
Plenty of high end cars do this too - you can pass noise regs because the noise test is not done at full throttle.
I followed a Porsche SUV the other day and you could see the valves in the tailpipes opening & closing as he drove it.
its always on purpose. people remove db killers from their silencers or swap them out for essentially empty cans. its mostly a rider preference thing. some riders completely remove the silencer altogether lol. its annoying.
And on top of that, it's also pretty common for folks to not just remove/replace the muffler, but to even remove the catalytic converter so that there's no restriction in the exhaust at all. It's technically illegal for street use just about everywhere because of emissions regulations. But on the track, where emissions regulations aren't really a thing, it's a pretty common mod because you *can* gain a noteworthy amount of power and cut a nice chunk of weight all at once, especially once you re-tune the fuel mixture (the manufactures are really forced to neuter their own performance pretty bad in order to meet emissions requirements).
Lots of street folks still do it though because it's cool and they totally "need" the absolute most power possible and very few states actually test motorcycles at all for emissions so long as the model meets the requirements in its stock form. So there's effectively nothing stopping people from doing it.
Obviously you haven't seen that South Park episode.
[South Park - Season 13, Ep. 12 - The F Word - Full Episode | South Park Studios Global](https://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/wpmnpk/south-park-the-f-word-season-13-ep-12)
Someone stole my 94 accord and cut off the cat, police found it abandoned a day later so I was able to reclaim it, but when I went to turn it on it sounded like a chainsaw was being operated from inside the car. That thing was loud
Years ago my shitty Honda's exhaust rusted through right after the exhaust headers. It sounded like a fucking Group B rally car, it was hilarious.
Super annoying and shameful, I had to gain some speed and then coast into my street in neutral to prevent other cars' alarms from going off, but it was hilarious.
It’s weird how scooters don’t need ear shattering noise to not die. It’s almost like it’s for the Harley rider’s deep insecurities and desperate need for validation as a man.
Weather just got warm in my area after winter and kids got their scooters out.
Let me tell ya, a couple dozen kids on lawnmowers with straight exhausts is ear shattering loud.
Right, slide not ride.
So full helmet, head to toe leather suits with padding, armor, and gloves, even in the summer.
Since we’re being ultra safety focused a high vis vest certainly won’t hurt, and while we’re at it maybe even one of those orange flags on top of a 5 foot orange pole.
Under those conditions I’m willing to believe that a person really is being safety conscious when they insist on a loud exhaust as a safety measure. But anyone who insists on loud pipes for safety, but refuses to take any of the other precautions, is just using safety as an excuse to be a nuisance.
They are not that loud when they are purchased new. The jackass owners change them to sound like that intentionally. I’ve got a number of bikes, none of them are loud.
It can be worse. In the UK. We have teens (especially during summer) who bore the exhaust in their 50CC scooters. They sound like a loud annoying hairdrier & they get like 5MPH more (allegedly). You hear them like half a mile away. Then you keep hearing them for a long time because they're going so damn slow.
I drive a motorcycle and I think it's because most motorcycle drivers believe that being loud means that you're going to have higher chances of people hearing you before they can see you. Honestly I think it's a bunch of BS. I see loud bikes as a huge distraction for the rider. I want and need to hear other things around me like horns, sirens, ECT and don't want my own bike to drown out those warning sounds that could save or end my life. I need to be aware of everything and everyone around me. If I can't hear sirens behind me or a persons horn possibly warning me of a road hazard they'd be screwed because their bikes were so loud.
"Loud pipes saves lives" is utter bullshit. Loud motorcycles, especially the american V-twin type, are primarily fitted with aftermarket mufflers to make them louder. Why? Because the riders don't feel "manly" enough with their riding buddies who all have loud mufflers, too.
I bought a used Harley Davidson with aftermarket mufflers. It wasn't the loudest I've ever heard, but it was too loud for me, and I put stock mufflers on it. It was still loud enough to get attention.
When I traded it for a BMW motorcycle at a Harley Davidson dealer, they asked if my Harley had aftermarket mufflers. I told them my story and they asked me to put the aftermarket mufflers back on. Why? Because it would be easier for them to sell since Harley riders tend to like them Loud. See paragraph one.
By the way, the BMW is ten times the bike the Harley was in every way.
>"Loud pipes saves lives" is utter bullshit.
The only thing loud pipes do is make drivers jump after bikers blow past them while splitting lanes. You rarely actually hear them over regular road noise until after it would be too late to avoid an accident anyways.
>By the way, the BMW is ten times the bike the Harley was in every way.
Pretty much every brand is five to ten times the bike a Harley is.
Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, etc.
Motorcycles have the fundamental problem that their exhausts are short and their mufflers are small.
I have a motorcycle with a relatively small engine, exhaust pipes that run the full length of the bike, and mufflers that weight 11kg *each*. It's still loud.
About 10% of my bike is muffler. Nobody is going to fit a bigger muffler than that.
As you can probably imagine, anyone who wants to save weight (which matters on motorcycles more than cars, partly because you rarely push cars anywhere) will see an obvious weight saving to be made, and indeed smaller aftermarket ones exist. They are lounder.
These also appeal to dickheads who like being loud.
Some motorcyclists say that loudness is a safety feature. "Loud pipes save lives." I don't disagree, but I've never seen a fellow rider make that argument while wearing a high visibility vest. Loud shirts save lives too, but they aren't as cool.
I have an older bike - Suzuki Bandit 1200. It's a 1200cc 4 cylinder engine and is air/oil cooled. It is very quick for its age and type and has a single large-ish muffler. Its exhaust note is quite muted.
My dad had a friend who had a Boss Hoss. That is a motorcycle powered by a Chevy small block V8 and *no mufflers*; it had tuned headers. He still had people changing lanes into him!
When driving I hear plenty of loud bikes, but I still see them before I hear them. If you hear a motorcycle that you can't see, how are you supposed to know where it is to avoid it, anyway?
I disagree about saving lives. If we turned them around maybe lol All that noise is going behind us, rarely helpful. Anyone who has ridden for awhile has plenty of stories about people cutting you off and merging into you because they never saw you. That loud pipes business is just shit. It’s loud cause that’s how you wanted it.
Because they like the noise. The loud pipes save lives is a crock when the only time you hear them is when they're in front of you while driving or passing you. I've seen too many people with loud pipes get hit by cars. They think it will save them when they're being idiots.
I learned how to ride bikes before I learned to drive a car, well over 50 years ago now. Just my experience. Learned from an old boyfriend who was also a motorcycle mechanic.
Car people will put a loud exhaust system on their car and fully admit that it’s because they think it sounds cool.
Why are motorcycles guys so sensitive that they can’t admit that they do it because they like the way it sounds?
Back when I rode, I wanted a quieter muffler so I wouldn't wake up the neighborhood when I left in the morning. Every place I called about it acted like I was speaking an alien language when I asked about options for a quiet muffler. One woman even said "they don't do that".
There are federal and state regulations as to how loud a motorcycle can be.
Some riders buy mufflers that are intentionally designed to be louder than that limit.
Riders with loud mufflers can be ticketed, or their motorcycles impounded. But they're not.
Growing up in Milwaukee, we could not keep the windows open because of the hogs going by with their 130dB open exhausts at bar time. Bit Milwaukee would never enforce noise ordinances against Harleys. Never.
Enforce the existing laws, and there would not be a problem.
They are loud because that's what sells. The 'bad to the bone' type want you to hear them, they think we're impressed.
On a technical note, it's very difficult to keep them quiet. These are very high output engines with little space, it's hard to put a long/large enough exhaust on them. A car has a couple ot meters of exhaust pipe, and the space for a large muffler, bikes don't.
If you take a Yamaha R6, it has 30% of the displacement of my 2.0 L car, but 70% of the power. That means high compression and very little mass. It's just not something you can easily keep quiet. There are bikes that can be relatively quiet, but they're larger, have large mufflers and generally have lower performance engines (specific output).
We understand locking posts is never popular, but our entire queue has been R3 (short answer) violations for almost a full day now, mostly commenting on the ratio of genital size to volume in five words or less.
It is entirely on purpose. Period. There are motorcycles that you do not hear at all, beyond an expected normal sound. They do not sell as well or have difficulty modifying them to be loud.
The “Loud pipes save lives” crew very often refuse to wear helmets, Which are more effective at saving lives
I have a “loud pipes save lives” sign by my desk. It depicts a bagpiper.
If you’d ever had to commute down Edinburghs Main Street you would be well aware that loud pipes make you want to strangle pipers.
I lived in South Africa until the end of the World Cup, then moved to Scotland. I can't decide what annoys me more: Vuvuzelas or Bagpipes on every street corner.
Couldn't you like maybe replace the pipes with Vuvuzelas and make a universally worse thing?
You, sir, have discovered a new war crime. The Canadian government has some opportunities for you...
New war crime ehh? _adds to the Geneva checklist_
It is not a checklist that needs a canadian can do attitude. Did you listen to anything we said about that the lasttime canada?
Whistle tip goes woo woooooo!
This one right here, officer.
I'd guess vuvuzela. Maybe it's different there, but by the time they reached the states there was nothing musical about them. Like blasting an air horn. A bagpipe *can* actually be a musical instrument.
> A bagpipe can actually be a musical instrument. In theory...
[This woman is a pretty good player](https://www.youtube.com/@PiperAlly). She covers a bunch of popular songs, and was even on tour with an electric violin player last year.
I guessed it was Ally before I even clicked the link, she’s awesome!
We all know bagpipes were invented to annoy the English from Scotland
You know what "perfect pitch" is? When you throw a set of bagpipes into a dumpster and hit a banjo dead center.
I can't bring myself to dislike pipers after that one video of (iirc) a guy following a neonazi around, drowning out the diatribe with his bagpipe.
I once had to explain to a music director (ETA: in the US) why he absolutely did NOT want two highland pipers to "accompany" an indoor choral performance in a small theater. I talked him down to one set of pipes, but he still worried he should have gone for two. After the first rehearsal with the piper in the theater, he thanked me.
I parked in a bad part of town with my bagpipes in the back seat. When I came back there were two bagpipes. Scottish definition of a Gentleman - Someone who knows how to play the bagpipes but doesn't. Why do bagpipers march when the play. Even they are trying to get away from the sound. Difference between a trampoline and bagpipes? You take your shoes off to jump on a trampline. (All that said, I love the bagpipes!)
I need my electric motorcycle to play a bagpipe sound effect
They'll also often wear black leather or dark denim, despite studies showing that wearing high-vis colors results in noticeably fewer accidents. They'll _also_ not see any contradiction between saying "drivers should be able to hear other vehicles on the road!", while literally sitting on top of the engine that makes it impossible for _them_ to hear anything else going on. (Not to mention the hearing issues it can cause, which leads to even _less_ awareness down the line) If you talk to even a few bikers here and there, you'll eventually find someone who will admit that it's all about looking and sounding cool.
Funny how looking and sounding cool is a hair away from simply wanting to be obnoxious and inconsiderate. Actually, now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense.
I think Chelsea Peretti had a standup joke about how getting a motorcycle amounts to a more expensive version of running down the street naked and banging some pots and pans. (This was in the context of her buying a motorcycle.)
Pretty much. [South Park](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ipDmsxQVxIM&pp=ygUXc291dGggcGFyayBoYXJsZXkgYmlrZXI%3D) did a decent take on [Harley riders.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui6HNB-1J20&pp=ygUXc291dGggcGFyayBoYXJsZXkgYmlrZXI%3D)
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Yep, it’s always been that way
Except it doesn't look or sound cool.
South Park did a fascinating documentary on this
Leading to me wanting to mention the nomenclature for those who have loud pipes, but I am quite sure the comment would get a flag.
Such a great discussion in that episode about language use and intent. Such a great episode overall.
Every Harley person ive ever known was a complete tool
I resent that. My uncle is also a *racist* tool.
A co-worker was tired of his neighbor coming home at 2 am on school/work nights with his straight pipe Harley, so he had a talk with the man. Nothing changed.
But it doesn't look or sound cool at all. It's obnoxious, inconsiderate MC behavior.
Unfortunately, being a source of consternation is actually considered cool by certain people.
There's a single mother on my street with a mute autistic child that's like 8. He freaks out when they rev up at the stop sign for no other reason than try and virtue signal how cool they are to other assholes. Seriously will fuck the kid *up(edit)* for hours and he'll have a freak out and there's not much the poor woman can do for him. Sometimes they ride up and down my street around the block and back just to go put it back in there garage. Like wtf is that? You get your balls filled with that little parade everyday? Meanwhile an 8yr old autistic child is literally shaking in fear for hours so you could bust a nut? I love bikes but I fucking hate the douchebaggery that "biker culture" maintains. Just assholes. Period.
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Yeah, for neurodivergent folks, as loud as those things sound to neurotypicals they sound louder to us. And even louder for the ASD 2 and 3 folks. The amygdala doesn't filter out as much information. It's like every brain cell is screaming that there's an emergency and our autonomic nervous system is freaking out and it actually hurts because it actually sounds even louder to our brains. Imagine if every human had a sensory input sensitivity dial, and some people's were turned down a little and some were turned up a little. Then you had this group that just had it turned *way* up, and then they had to live in a world of people with theirs turned way down and thus had things louder and brighter and smellier to compensate. And it's so overwhelming and there's no way to get it all to quiet down and it hurts and there's nothing left you can do but scream and hide and rock back and forth holding your ears and eyes because it's all so overwhelming and painful. Welcome to autism. For what it's worth, if that kid could get some noise cancelling earbuds or headphones they're a lifesaver. It doesn't make the hypermasculine bikes completely quiet, but it helps so so much.
For me it's less about the volume and more about the cacophony. Noise cancelling helps some but not nearly enough. Entertainingly, white noise generators have some of the same cacophony that I have trouble dealing with.
As someone with autism, I don’t like noise canceling headphones. They feel “loud” if you know what I mean. Over time, the “nothing noises” get louder and louder (I’m assuming it’s just me hearing my own body) and I have to take them off because it’s too much. But I’ve always been extremely picky about my hearing and my ears and don’t like things covering my ears/in my ears in the first place, so that could be why.
>try and virtue signal What you described is not virtue signalling
I hate that phrase. It’s just a catchphrase they tell themselves to justify the obnoxiously loud pipes. There is no correlation between motorcycle exhaust volume and safety. Just say you like the engine noise.
I sometimes wonder how many lives they saved in a 5 block radius.
*Loud motorcycle noises* Little Timmy: "That biker is so stupid, I don't want to be like that when I grow up." *One life saved*
Saved that toddler from falling asleep on time, that's about it.
My wife sometimes listens to rap in the car and I know she's coming home before I can actually see the car She should use this line too. Saved many lives looking out for her in the car.
Sounds like a guy I used to work with. The tunes would start blasting when he started the car. Saw him one day cruising in the left lane with a wailing ambulance 3 feet off his back bumper. Turn your radio down Nick!
As someone that rides motocycles. Cars very commonly miss bikes. I've almost T-boned 3 cars one summer because they pulled out of parking lots or round abouts infront of me. (I drive a Lime green motorcycle so it doesn't blend in) However, I don't think that justifies making your bike audible from 2 miles away. I hate loud vehicles in general.
You can’t even hear loud pipes quick enough in a car if you’re moving highway speed. You’ll only hear them once they’re right behind you. The only place that I’ve actually noticed loud bikes before they came by is in stopped traffic. Then the exhaust noise doesn’t have to get loud enough to overcome the road noise before you notice it. My bike sounds like a lawnmower below ~6-7k and that’s how I like it. I just ride like I’m invisible
Yes, this. On my last bike, one time I noticed someone 3 cars ahead of me notice me from the sound of my obnoxiously loud exhaust against the cement barrier in the right hand lane. One time. More often than not it actually triggered douchebags into doing dumb streetrace crap around me instead. It did shit-all for my safety, so now I ride an overpowered Japanese sewing machine with a stock exhaust, cruise control, and one of the brightest helmets I could find, and I haven't had any increase in near-death situations. The dudes who blast their radios louder to hear over their loud pipes make me cringe so hard.
Humans evolved with very good colour stereoscopic vision which is very good at estimating distances and speed. Our hearing however is only fair to middling and poor at estimating the direction and distance of a noise. Add in the difference between light speed and sound speed I’m going to call BS on the people saying a loud exhaust keeps them safe. Better to be more visible than louder I reckon.
As someone that rides motocycles. Your tailpipes are facing away from other cars, directing sound behind you while you're going 60+ mph. By the time someone hears your motorcycle, you're already infront of that person.
Yeah, for loud pipes to save lives they should be front-facing and flared like horns.
The thing is those drivers you are talking about are mostly *just bad drivers*. It's very unlikely them hearing a bike is what will change that.
Same! If it was all about visibility and safety, wearing orange reflective hi vis gear and designing/modifying motorcycles specifically to be more visible would be the norm. But it's not the norm because it doesn't look cool. Loud pipes are cool, never actually was about safety
That's such bull shit. Safe bikers/safe drivers saves lives. From my experience the louder the bike the bigger the ass hole who doesn't follow the laws or consider their own safety or those of other drivers. Edit: spelling
That was disproved way back in the 70s by the Hurt Report, as well just science on how motorcycles usually get in crashes from the front and the Doppler effect.
Same guys who get an all-black bike, and wear all-black clothing, and then ride at night.
Without a helmet because "helmets are for pussies."
"very often refuse" In sons of anarchy, everyone wore a helmet... /#respect
When you're carrying illegal firearms and drugs, it's smart not to get pulled over because of a helmet.
Never break more than one law at a time
They're in California. It's the law to wear a helmet. Many states don't have that law.
It'd actually be LESS believable if they didn't wear helmets, because that'd give an excuse to get pulled over. "Break one law at a time"
In PA: - Everyone under 21 needs to wear a helmet. - Over 21 with permit, helmet required. - Over 21 with motorcycle license, optional.
Never saw the show, but helmet-/-helmet. The guys riding with pudding bowls on their heads only help by making the clean-up of the aftermath a little bit easier by keeping all the parts of their brains in one spot.
I got passed on the shoulder of a dangerous road on my commute the other day by a biker without a helmet, pulling out of a bar on the outside of a big curve in the road. It was literally next to a makeshift roadside shrine for a biker who was hit doing the same thing a year ago, with the words, "Share the road."
I nearly got hit by an Uber Eats delivery guy riding a motorcycle on the goddamn sidewalk. I saw another one riding at speed the wrong way down a protected bike lane. If you told me that motorcycles have a disproportionate amount inconsiderate, stupid, entitled assholes as drivers, I wouldn't be surprised.
My *favorite* question I got asked in a motorcycle training/license course was, "You've all heard this, right?" Class nods. "Have you ever *looked* for the motorcycle? *cue 20 people realizing that they haven't ever looked for the motorcycle.* "So, that's bullshit. Loud pipes just piss off your neighbors."
'Loud pipes save lives' group is the same as can't google 'doppler effect gang' . Pipes make no difference except in very slow traffic
Had a friend buy a Harley about 20 years ago in Colorado. She took it in to the dealer and put in a work order labeled internally as "rear suspension alignment" which was code for "modify the muffler to make it loud".
~~muffler~~ *loudener?*
Anti muffler
#RESONATOR
**Neighborhaters**
Potato potato potato
Snake, snake... oohhh, it's a snake..
Badger badger badger badger
Mushroom! *Mushroom!!*
Perfectly captured the emphasis on the second shroom. Bravo.
I got this one. Scene still makes laugh when I think about it.
I hate those motherfuckers
I am looking at a reel on Facebook right now where the person is taking the baffles out of their muffler There are a hundred people arguing that "loud pipes save lives" The whole thing is ridiculous. Not as ridiculous as the people arguing EV will get people killed because they're quiet, but still pretty ridiculous. They want it loud for the attention, just like the cars.
Yeah that loud pipe save lives is utter bullshit. I've been a driver for 40 years and I've never heard a motorcycle unless they were right next to the driver's window. Even then, between the air rushing, the tire noises, the music, the heater or AC, I barely hear them at all.
Not to mention that 1. Loud pipes damage the hearing of the rider, making them less aware of their own surroundings. 2. Loud pipes engender panic and malice in drivers, endangering *all* motorcycle riders, not just the assholes with loud pipes. There is no safety argument for "loud pipes save lives" that wouldn't be *better* served by a loudspeaker constantly blaring Baby Shark, but you don't see bikers doing that.
My first 4-cyl bike came with a pretty loud pipe. I felt like everyone is swearing at me for being obnoxiously loud (and they probably were). Reverted it to factory exhaust within a week.
Thank you
The “loud pipes” startle me! One of these days it’s going to cause me to swerve in the wrong direction. If they actually wanted to be safe they’d wear helmets, and be predictable - it’s erratic driving that causes nearly all accidents.
And not lane split at 120mph
If loud pipes actually saved lives, then we should just take it to the logical extreme and equip every motorcycle with *amplified* exhaust systems. Why rely on the natural noise of exploding gasoline when you can double, triple, quadruple those decibels? All in the name of "Safety"!
If loud pipes really saved lives, insurance companies would incentivize (or require) riders to get them. Or require manufacturers to sell them pre-equipped.
Just give them sirens.
If loud pipes really saved lives - we would muffle the ambiguous engine noise and add a sound system that made a more easy to detect and orient sound. Like when large trucks backup and it says "Caution - turning"
There's got to be at least one pedestrian that snapped and murdered a motorcycle driver for their loud pipes too.
A neighbor seems likely. Some guy who has had it with his neighbor cold starting a harley at 5am and idling it for 20 mins every morning. https://www.reddit.com/r/motorcycles/comments/8vpjwx/senseless_murder_over_exhaust/ https://www.kgw.com/article/news/crime/court-docs-contradict-vancouver-homeowner-arrested-shooting-man/283-00af48c5-fe33-4d17-aac7-3679d4684f7a
Yeah, they pretend it's so car drivers hear them, but it's *literally* everyone else who suffers instead.
What’s even worse is when some jackass blasts past you and so you don’t hear them until you see them in your peripheral vision. Scares the crap out of me, for some reason.
Worse, if a loud chopper is next to me I will speed up to get the blast of the dick cannon away from my car/ears. Being put closer to my blind spot is WORSE.
Yup, somehow that crowd also seems to be the ones not wearing proper gear, or at least there's a VERY strong correlation in my experience. If you're so concerned with your own safety, why aren't you taking the most effective precautions? Also, the only study that looked at accident rates and modified exhausts was the Hurt Report which showed that bikes with modified exhausts are MORE likely to be in an accident, not less. Obviously, it didn't conclude that modified exhaust systems were the cause of the accidents. I believe that those who want louder exhausts are often the ones riding more aggressively and that's the cause of the accidents. It does however show that having loud exhausts does not increase rider safety.
Personally, when a bike flies up and blasts their exhaust at me out of nowhere, it startles the shit out of me and does nothing to tell me where they are. I have never felt *more* likely to accidentally hit someone than in those moments.
It's not always attention. I'd love to drive around in a car with a loud exhaust because it sounds cool and I would have fun doing it. I don't do it, though, because I'm not a dick.
I ended up in Washington DC on Memorial Day one year along with 30,000 motorcyclists. My God. Everywhere you went it was so loud. I noticed that many of the riders had ear plugs in and my first thought was: You don't even want to hear your own comically loud motorcycle, what makes you think I want to hear it?
The sound of wind above even 45 mph will destroy your ears over time and is louder than the exhaust.
You need earplugs even if you ride a Zero.
Yeah, when I rode it was a pretty quiet Honda. Still wore earplugs every ride.
Well there are quiet motorcycles that do sell very well. It’s mainly the Harley cruiser crowd that wants loud motorcycles. Harley motorcycles are engineered to produce as much noise as possible w/o the unwanted horsepower byproduct.
>Harley motorcycles are **engineered** \* snort \* No they're not. I'm pretty sure they just dig giant lumps of iron out of the ground and slap some wheels on. The tech is from the 1920s or some shit. Except for the V-Rod, as far as I'm aware. Porsche helped them with some stuff on that to make an actual performance engine.
Their engines could be made different and more in line with modern tech, but they want to retain that distinctive "potato-potato-potato" sound.
are you fucking kidding me? those things kill my ears and scare the shit out of me. How is it not illegal.
It's very illegal. It's just that the regulations for motorcycles are slightly more lax than for cars.
They’re just usually not enforced. I’ve been riding nearly 30 years and have never seen one of my friends get pulled over for their straight piped bullshit. I like a little bit of vroom but quality > quantity.
There was a motorbike show in my town and these guys were getting hard ons from the noise ...it's on purpose for sure
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That South Park episode should be the first answer. It's the most correct one
This episode sums it up perfectly.
It's *wild* that this shit is legal. It's so loud for no good reason, and just causes noise pollution for everybody else nearby. It's way over the safe decibel levels too. Just absurd.
It’s not legal under most state laws on the basis of excessive noise and modifying emissions systems. It just isn’t enforced.
Exactly. Fragile, insecure men want attention and want the world to see just how manly they are driving around in/on a really loud vehicle
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Yup. They do that shit on purpose and laws are far too soft on them. I don't wanna hear that shit - dial it down or lose the bike.
My BMW motorcycle is nearly silent compared to any straight-piped V-twin motorcycle. Someone else has commented already on the "loud pipes save lives" mantra. I lean more towards the "everyone is out to kill me so I need to be overly cautious" mantra myself, but to each their own. (Side note: ask any fire truck driver how they feel about "loud pipes" or "bright flashy lights" making it so other drivers see you and don't pull out in front of you.)
I don't know any fire truck drivers, can you explain to me
I think they are implying people still pull out in front firetrucks despite the lights and sounds making them very noticable. Some people are oblivious enough.
And here I was reading it more as “firefighters have to respond to scenes where riders with loud bikes have been struck by another vehicle in spite of those loud pipes”. I was thrown off by the flashy lights bit after that.
As a motorcyclist myself, science tells us that loud pipes don't save lives. They just piss everyone off. The pipes project the sound backwards, so when a bike with loud pipes overtakes you, you still don't hear them until they get in front of you, unless they are deafeningly loud. It does depend a lot on how quiet the car is as well I guess.
I’ve seen people break check ambulances with their lights and sirens on!
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I used to drive an ambulance, even with flashing lights and sirens people will straight up ignore you or not notice you at all. A loud motorcycle isn’t likely to be noticed by those people, who are probably the most likely to hit a motorcyclist while not paying attention.
I volunteer with a rescue squad. Everyone has a rush of shit for brains when you’re behind them and running emergency traffic. My favorite was a guy who was towing a farm implement. He stopped dead on top of a hill in a 55 mph zone so we could pass…when we couldn’t see over or around him to do so.
What they’re trying to say is in response to “loud pipes save lives” which, to use a fire truck as an example, doesn’t seem to be true since with how loud and flashy a fire truck is compared to any motorcycle, you’d expect no one to pull out in front of fire trucks if “loud pipes save lives” is true. And since people still pull out in front of fire trucks, they’re suggesting that loud pipes don’t do much to save lives.
People do still pull out in front of Fire Trucks, but I would be willing to bet less people pull out in front of a fire truck with lights and sirens running. There will always be a wildcard when human behavior gets thrown into the mix. Or people need to stop looking at their damn phone while driving
>I lean more towards the "everyone is out to kill me so I need to be overly cautious" mantra myself, but to each their own One biker once told me (to a new driver) always look at the wheels, rims will tell you if the car is going to move Wise words saved me few times
we were taught that in drivers ed watching low for shadows can also indicate if somebody is about to step out from behind a car
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As a beemer rider that fits your stereotype, I’m not sure if I should take offense to that or take pride in that.
Pride. I’ve seen meat crayons. Any gear you can protect yourself with is smart.
Definitely pride. I was a dumbass who would short-trip home in shorts and trainers sometimes (and helmet). Still dumb - and not on a Beemer. Had to sell my bike at one point and changed to an older BMW car. Way less safety gear for a commute. When you're ready for that bike, you're ready to do it right.
Your mantra is the only mantra one needs. No one is paying attention. No one signals lane changes. Everything comes at you faster than it should because everyone is hard on the gas and hard on the brakes.
They claim that loud pipes save lives but that claim is exposed when they won’t wear a helmet.
If loud pipes saved lives, the pipes would face forward.
My BMW was quiet and a fuckton faster than most of these loud bikes. People don’t understand exhaust engineering.
I have an older Harley roadbike, and it is muffled about right. If you really step on it it's definetly heard, but regular riding or idle is pleasent. Having driven in the Metro area for 30 years, I a mixed on the 'loud saves lives'. Such noise has checked some of my lane movements when I wasn't aware a biker was around, but more than equally, bikers were making moves in traffic that they shouldn't be doing; if anything, in some cases, they were trying to freeze me out of a lane of travel. It's hard enough trying to stay safe as it is. It is scary how close people tail my Harley in traffic or near stop lights. It's a 1000 lbs bike and you have to have room to weave a bit due to road conditions and coming to a full stop or start.
Every single time you hear an extremely loud motorcycle, its owner has deliberately modified it to be that loud. There are very, very few exceptions. Even superbikes with 210 horsepower come from the factory with fairly quiet exhaust.
I had a bone stock 2011 Kawi Ninja 1000 that had a valved exhaust. If you drove it with relatively normal throttle rates, it was mild sounding. However, if you completely opened the throttle, it was SO LOUD. I think it essentially became a straight pipe at full throttle. Not sure how that's legal from a factory bike. IIRC there are federal regulations on exhaust decibels.
Plenty of high end cars do this too - you can pass noise regs because the noise test is not done at full throttle. I followed a Porsche SUV the other day and you could see the valves in the tailpipes opening & closing as he drove it.
That's how my buddies MT10 is as well, has an OEM bypass system that kicks in at full throttle.
In the higher rpms they aren’t quiet. Motorcycles with bigger engines are going to be loud inherently.
its always on purpose. people remove db killers from their silencers or swap them out for essentially empty cans. its mostly a rider preference thing. some riders completely remove the silencer altogether lol. its annoying.
They prefer to be deaf?
They prefer to advertise their loud hobby to as many people as possible.
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A lot of people like activities that damage their hearing.
And on top of that, it's also pretty common for folks to not just remove/replace the muffler, but to even remove the catalytic converter so that there's no restriction in the exhaust at all. It's technically illegal for street use just about everywhere because of emissions regulations. But on the track, where emissions regulations aren't really a thing, it's a pretty common mod because you *can* gain a noteworthy amount of power and cut a nice chunk of weight all at once, especially once you re-tune the fuel mixture (the manufactures are really forced to neuter their own performance pretty bad in order to meet emissions requirements). Lots of street folks still do it though because it's cool and they totally "need" the absolute most power possible and very few states actually test motorcycles at all for emissions so long as the model meets the requirements in its stock form. So there's effectively nothing stopping people from doing it.
It's fairly recent that motorcycles even got catalytic converters. Old bikes didn't come with them.
Obviously you haven't seen that South Park episode. [South Park - Season 13, Ep. 12 - The F Word - Full Episode | South Park Studios Global](https://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/wpmnpk/south-park-the-f-word-season-13-ep-12)
Yeah, that episode is the perfect explanation.
“Hey people aren’t paying attention to us!!!” And they start making noise with their mouths in the diner lmao
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Or someone stole your cat in the middle of the night
I sure hope not.
And they might have taken your catalytic converter too
My kitty nooooooo!!!
Someone stole my 94 accord and cut off the cat, police found it abandoned a day later so I was able to reclaim it, but when I went to turn it on it sounded like a chainsaw was being operated from inside the car. That thing was loud
Sounds like catalytic converter theft. This happened to me a couple years ago.
Years ago my shitty Honda's exhaust rusted through right after the exhaust headers. It sounded like a fucking Group B rally car, it was hilarious. Super annoying and shameful, I had to gain some speed and then coast into my street in neutral to prevent other cars' alarms from going off, but it was hilarious.
"LoUd pipEs sAvE LiVeS" - said by guys wearing the most minimalist helmets they legally can, t-shirt, jeans, and no high-vis vest.
It’s weird how scooters don’t need ear shattering noise to not die. It’s almost like it’s for the Harley rider’s deep insecurities and desperate need for validation as a man.
Weather just got warm in my area after winter and kids got their scooters out. Let me tell ya, a couple dozen kids on lawnmowers with straight exhausts is ear shattering loud.
Or bicycles, e-bikes, pedestrians, wheel chairs, ultra-sub-compact cars… Bikers with loud pipes are basically the biggest pussies on the road.
Loud pipes only save lives because it's illegal to kill the drivers.
1 dress for slide not ride 2 fire trucks and ambulances have lights and sirens and some people still don't even notice them...
Right, slide not ride. So full helmet, head to toe leather suits with padding, armor, and gloves, even in the summer. Since we’re being ultra safety focused a high vis vest certainly won’t hurt, and while we’re at it maybe even one of those orange flags on top of a 5 foot orange pole. Under those conditions I’m willing to believe that a person really is being safety conscious when they insist on a loud exhaust as a safety measure. But anyone who insists on loud pipes for safety, but refuses to take any of the other precautions, is just using safety as an excuse to be a nuisance.
Yeah, it's more like "I am a caveman and think that loud sounds are cool!"
They are not that loud when they are purchased new. The jackass owners change them to sound like that intentionally. I’ve got a number of bikes, none of them are loud.
Loud choppers are the worst sounding things on the road. Hot garbage. All volume, no tone. And I’m someone whos all for modding exhausts
It can be worse. In the UK. We have teens (especially during summer) who bore the exhaust in their 50CC scooters. They sound like a loud annoying hairdrier & they get like 5MPH more (allegedly). You hear them like half a mile away. Then you keep hearing them for a long time because they're going so damn slow.
I drive a motorcycle and I think it's because most motorcycle drivers believe that being loud means that you're going to have higher chances of people hearing you before they can see you. Honestly I think it's a bunch of BS. I see loud bikes as a huge distraction for the rider. I want and need to hear other things around me like horns, sirens, ECT and don't want my own bike to drown out those warning sounds that could save or end my life. I need to be aware of everything and everyone around me. If I can't hear sirens behind me or a persons horn possibly warning me of a road hazard they'd be screwed because their bikes were so loud.
"Loud pipes saves lives" is utter bullshit. Loud motorcycles, especially the american V-twin type, are primarily fitted with aftermarket mufflers to make them louder. Why? Because the riders don't feel "manly" enough with their riding buddies who all have loud mufflers, too. I bought a used Harley Davidson with aftermarket mufflers. It wasn't the loudest I've ever heard, but it was too loud for me, and I put stock mufflers on it. It was still loud enough to get attention. When I traded it for a BMW motorcycle at a Harley Davidson dealer, they asked if my Harley had aftermarket mufflers. I told them my story and they asked me to put the aftermarket mufflers back on. Why? Because it would be easier for them to sell since Harley riders tend to like them Loud. See paragraph one. By the way, the BMW is ten times the bike the Harley was in every way.
What's the difference between a vacuum cleaner and a Harley rider? The location of the dirt-bag.
What's the difference between a Harley rider and a horse? On the horse, the dick goes underneath.
>"Loud pipes saves lives" is utter bullshit. The only thing loud pipes do is make drivers jump after bikers blow past them while splitting lanes. You rarely actually hear them over regular road noise until after it would be too late to avoid an accident anyways.
>By the way, the BMW is ten times the bike the Harley was in every way. Pretty much every brand is five to ten times the bike a Harley is. Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda, etc.
Harley is 90% a marketing company to sell anything with Harley Davidson in the name, and make less money on bikes than they do accessories.
Only 10 times? You must have had a good Harley!
Motorcycles have the fundamental problem that their exhausts are short and their mufflers are small. I have a motorcycle with a relatively small engine, exhaust pipes that run the full length of the bike, and mufflers that weight 11kg *each*. It's still loud. About 10% of my bike is muffler. Nobody is going to fit a bigger muffler than that. As you can probably imagine, anyone who wants to save weight (which matters on motorcycles more than cars, partly because you rarely push cars anywhere) will see an obvious weight saving to be made, and indeed smaller aftermarket ones exist. They are lounder. These also appeal to dickheads who like being loud. Some motorcyclists say that loudness is a safety feature. "Loud pipes save lives." I don't disagree, but I've never seen a fellow rider make that argument while wearing a high visibility vest. Loud shirts save lives too, but they aren't as cool.
I have an older bike - Suzuki Bandit 1200. It's a 1200cc 4 cylinder engine and is air/oil cooled. It is very quick for its age and type and has a single large-ish muffler. Its exhaust note is quite muted. My dad had a friend who had a Boss Hoss. That is a motorcycle powered by a Chevy small block V8 and *no mufflers*; it had tuned headers. He still had people changing lanes into him! When driving I hear plenty of loud bikes, but I still see them before I hear them. If you hear a motorcycle that you can't see, how are you supposed to know where it is to avoid it, anyway?
A fucking V8 BIKE???? this is insane.
WHAT? I CANT HEAR YOU!
I disagree about saving lives. If we turned them around maybe lol All that noise is going behind us, rarely helpful. Anyone who has ridden for awhile has plenty of stories about people cutting you off and merging into you because they never saw you. That loud pipes business is just shit. It’s loud cause that’s how you wanted it.
Because they like the noise. The loud pipes save lives is a crock when the only time you hear them is when they're in front of you while driving or passing you. I've seen too many people with loud pipes get hit by cars. They think it will save them when they're being idiots. I learned how to ride bikes before I learned to drive a car, well over 50 years ago now. Just my experience. Learned from an old boyfriend who was also a motorcycle mechanic.
Car people will put a loud exhaust system on their car and fully admit that it’s because they think it sounds cool. Why are motorcycles guys so sensitive that they can’t admit that they do it because they like the way it sounds?
I legitimately would be embarrassed to ride on a bike that loud. Don’t these people feel uncomfortable knowing the entire neighborhood despises them?
Back when I rode, I wanted a quieter muffler so I wouldn't wake up the neighborhood when I left in the morning. Every place I called about it acted like I was speaking an alien language when I asked about options for a quiet muffler. One woman even said "they don't do that".
There are federal and state regulations as to how loud a motorcycle can be. Some riders buy mufflers that are intentionally designed to be louder than that limit. Riders with loud mufflers can be ticketed, or their motorcycles impounded. But they're not. Growing up in Milwaukee, we could not keep the windows open because of the hogs going by with their 130dB open exhausts at bar time. Bit Milwaukee would never enforce noise ordinances against Harleys. Never. Enforce the existing laws, and there would not be a problem.
This is done on purpose, many bikers want you to LOOK AT ME AND HOW COOL AND LOUD I AM! LOOK LOOK
South Park made a great episode addressing this issue.
They are loud because that's what sells. The 'bad to the bone' type want you to hear them, they think we're impressed. On a technical note, it's very difficult to keep them quiet. These are very high output engines with little space, it's hard to put a long/large enough exhaust on them. A car has a couple ot meters of exhaust pipe, and the space for a large muffler, bikes don't. If you take a Yamaha R6, it has 30% of the displacement of my 2.0 L car, but 70% of the power. That means high compression and very little mass. It's just not something you can easily keep quiet. There are bikes that can be relatively quiet, but they're larger, have large mufflers and generally have lower performance engines (specific output).