It's war against MCs in Toronto!!!

I was in Toronto on Thursday and I think I saw maybe half a dozen bikes, all criusers, riding very sanely.

Jim

That's not only a Toronto problem - it's an issue all over North America.
I went today for a nice leisurely ride with The Wife on the pillion. We stopped at a fairly posh continental restaurant, which was trying to get into the spirit of upcoming Oktoberfest: a beer garden in the warm autumn afternoon.

Everything was just fine, pleasant weather, a bit of a breeze, hushed voices (unfortunately, I cannot tell you about the beer: I had an ice tea). Then, a cruiser came to life in front of the place. Potato-potato. POTATO! POTATO!

Half of the restaurant patrons turned around and looked at us with a scolding glare. Trying to explain that my own bike is perfectly quiet would have been pointless, no? I was annoyed by the exhaust racket myself. And what's with the blipping of throttle?

Ergo: I have no problem with roadside noise checks. Better that than having motorcycles banned by the pissed-off public.

^ this

Ridden enough in US & Europe to see the effect of noise-makers.

America: "No Motorcycles allowed" - in several resort areas, parkgrounds and communities

Verona: "Motorcycles park inside" when checking in to a hotel right downtown - it was raining and the new Benz convertible could sit outside for all they cared, but our bikes ? - warm & cozy.

It's the difference between motorcycles being a viable part of the transportation mix and a "lifestyle accessory".

This comes up again and again. Sure the author is a whiny little bitch but he has a point. That loud pipe shit is incredibly annoying. And the dickwads who perpetuate it always shout foul in the name of "safety" when questioned.

The reality is bleak, and I wish there was a way to get this through the heads of these morons:

If you continue to piss off the voting public with your obnoxious pipes, motorcycles will be banned from more and more areas. ALL motorcycles, not just yours. You are LOSING all of us rights and priveleges because you are selfish narcissistic asshole.

All of this is completely ignoring the fact that 45 degree v twins sound like crap with open pipes on them. Ever heard an HD with a STOCK exhaust? They actually sound pretty nice! The "safety" thing is a worn-out excuse to beget attention.

Yeah for all you loud pipe addicts, party down! Go ahead and antagonize everyone and maybe they'll ban them quicker. Good riddance!

Ever heard the tooth fairy fart? Not gonna happen either.

Almost serious. I have heard a couple of stock HDs and I agree they sound pretty nice. Our master diver has a stock dyna. He said the salesman pretty much instantly tried to talk him into having pipes installed, for "more power." He was like I just want to go for a cruise with my wife, how much more power do I need? Would that more riders had that attitude.

How often do you hear a sportbike with stock exhaust?
How often do you hear a Yamaha cruiser with stock exhaust?
How often do you hear a Suzuki cruiser with stock exhauset?
How often do you hear a Honda cruiser with stock exhaust? (other than a Wing).

My observation around here is the Jap cruisers tend to be louder than the Harley's and I believe it is because they are trying to make em sound like em. Hell they try to make em look alike!

But my personal pet peeve is the sportbikes with the loud exhausts... and I believe it is because 9 out of 10 times it's because when you hear em, they tend to be running down the city streets at 40-50 miles over the speed limit at the top of their rpm limit in second gear. And of course when they stop it has to begin at the top of the rev limit in first gear....

It is extremely naïve to believe this is a "Harley" issue.

Almost as stupid as expecting anyone to believe a bunch of people in a restaurant would give a rider seated inside, the stinkeye because a loud bike pulled onto the lot. (But it did give the poster another opportunity to bash a Harley...)

And by the way, I ride both. A Ultra Classic with stock pipes and a sportbike with stock pipes.

Because some Americans on this forum seem to think that any discussion about laws has to involve a reference to guns.

And some people here are assholes. What's your point?

Handguns have been restricted and/or prohibited pretty much forever in Canada. I know pistol shooting is a sport - my father used to compete. He was also a paranoid feller and carried a 38 tucked into his pants. I can assure you, it didn't make me feel safer. LOL.

I happen to like firearms a great deal. I just don't feel the need to carry one in my back pocket or have one in my desk at work or need to worry that the whacked out driver that is freaking out on me is very probably carrying.



To the OP - I don't know about a "downtown whiner" but I grew up in downtown Toronto. That doesn't mean I like loud noises or should have to put up with some asshat creating needless noise for the sake of making noise. Anything reasonable thing the authorities can do to change this, I'm happy with. Lord knows no one else seems willing to do anything. The motorcycle community, as it exists in Southern Ontario at least, preaches the "loud pipes save lives" nonsense long and loud.

Yep, I have had owned bikes for over 35 years and I still cannot fathom why some inconsiderate jerks insist we all listen to their loud pipes on crappy bikes.

But the good news is that some places are enforcing, I was out in Edmonton this summer and they equipped the Police with decibel meters.

Lots of the 'wads were getting tickets.

This should happen everywhere. If we want to be respected as legitimate and treated with respect and courtesy, it is time to "silence" the a**hats.

I bet if you ranted and raved about loud pipes on a site that catered to cruisers and or Harleys you would get better results than you do here. At least you would have way more people to convert.

I'm laughing because yesterday I head an HD pull up next to me at a light and thought "wow that's quiet and sounds good!" It had stock pipes on it...and...you guessed it...the dealer paper tag. He was probably on his way to have them replaced....

so the point of the article is, if you're going to kill yourself just do it quietly?

screw safety.....



I wonder if his "condo downtown" has a lawn that he can yell at people for walking across, or are all the cool kids already there?



part of living in a city is noise, period. Garbage trucks at very close proximity, road works, sirens, and yes the occasional loud bike. the rest of the crap is significantly more prolific than the bikes however if you were to live near a Santa Monica canyon, I feel for you for sure.
In all honesty, after having ridden in Los Angeles for 10 years almost every day, I have WAY less close calls on my Speed Triple (with annoying pipes) than my stock GS.

Having said that, when I move back to my quiet hometown in a few months, Im going to stockify the exhaust on the Speedy 3.

hell leaf blowers ARE ILLEGAL in Los Angeles but do I have to constantly hear that crap and have to breathe the two stroke exhaust, yes.

You do raise a good point here and I wanted to chime in -- when I was moaning about Harleys I should have been more explicit in referring to the outlaw-cruiser-'loud bikes are better' culture; in that culture the flagship marque is the Harley. I've seen quite a few and know quite a few HD riders that are perfectly nice folks with reasonable-noise pipes and are just like the rest of us.

The folks who make noise to turn heads are an issue -- It doesn't matter if it's an HD or a Kawasaki. As was already mentioned though, most of them don't care that those heads are turned in anger and annoyance, not admiration.

Not sure if the difference between loud Harley/cruisers and loud everything else is that great. Just that there are more Harley/cruisers out there.

I may or may not have posted in the HD forum, can't remember, at any rate I've got no hope of converting anyone. The only way the hardcore will stop is when they start getting tickets.

Well, I'm glad we got that settled. Bye.

Well my V-Star has its stock, unmodified exhaust, my Ural's exhaust is louder than stock, but few would consider it loud..

Never understood trying to make a metric sound like Harley, after all, folks purchase metrics because they want an American classic or custom, but also want the more refined engineering and function of a UJM.
I like my V-Star the way it is, last thing I would want is to have it shake and sound like a paint shaker, otherwise I would have simply gotten another Harley.

No question that metric cruisers are on average are just as loud as Harleys, seems like there's lots of peer pressure to conform to the non conformist lifestyle image.

I too have experienced "the look" because of the bad behavior of other riders, and its kinda amusing in a sad sort of way how some riders confuse that contempt with respect.

the bottom line is that the average person just sees/hears an obnoxious motorcycle and they really don't care if it's a Harley or a Sportbike that's loud.
Harley's are usually moving more slowly however....

VS.

Now I'm all about being respectful to my fellow neighbors and such but there are a lot of lunatics out there that would complain about the smallest noise. What are we to do about them?? Oh, lets turn all of our bikes in and get electric ones... that'll keep the noise down!!

I was camping at Flagstaff lake in a remote location and I got up early to enjoy the sunrise. As I was lighting the fire I heard some noise. WHAT??? NOISE WHILE I'M CAMPING??? UNHEARD OF!! IT SHOULD BE QUIET OUT IN THE WILDERNESS!!!! It was a chainsaw and then I heard the logging trucks. OH NO!! IT WASN'T ALL PIECE AND QUIET!!! WHAT AM I TO DO???

Now lets have an adult conversation about this. Some of us enjoy hearing our engines. It was part of the muscle car era and is a part of motorcycles for a group of us. If you're offended by it then TURN YOUR HEARING AID DOWN!! Seriously, it's part of life. Life is noise. Excess isn't a measurement. What's excessive to one person isn't excessive to another.

Yeah, I wish some people would get quieter pipes but then again I wish my neighbor wouldn't mow his lawn at 8am. I wish that the kid with the crappy car would put a muffler on his car instead of a fart can thinking that it was cool. If LEO/legislation would limit EVERYTHING I might consider agreeing with them. Riding an electric motorcycle just so some liberal people with their noise stuck up in the air wont get offended, NOT HAPPENING.

Obviously you cant make everybody happy all the time, but when your pissing everybody off, including other motorheads, you've gone too far.

I too enjoy hearing an engine, but I'm aware the other 99 out of 100 people don't want to hear mine, so I use common sense and practice some restraint. If you choose to make enough noise to cause others to complain, you should be willing to listen to their noise too.

Your exhaust, their whining, its only equitable.

I would also like to add I wish people kept the stock pipes on their dirt bikes too. Trails are being threatened by local land owners that are pissed off 'cause of the noise. I can't pretend I'm a little-goodie-two-shoes though. I own a KTM EXC 200 and even with the stock pipe on, 2-strokes are usually loud as heck. At the very least I take it easy while passing properties or residential area's instead of burning donuts in their backyard.

Trees have a wonderful ability to dampen noise, but this damping is proportional to f^1/3, where f is the frequency of the exhaust tone.
for example: a 200Hz exhaust note diminishes by 5.85dB/100m, whereas a 1200Hz note diminishes by 10.62dB/100m. (This doesn't give you an excuse to rev your engine really high to increase the exhaust note! )

This is likely why some people have a greater issue with cruisers than sport bikes. Low notes penetrate surfaces, and are damped much less than high notes.

To put meaning to this, if you have a speaker that outputs 100dB, then you turn on another speaker right next to it, the sound level increases by 3dB to 103dB. (Simply doubling the sound energy increases the level by 3dB, so a difference in 4.77dB/100m is a BIG DEAL.)

Hope this sheds light on some of the mysteries of 'noise'

Source: Kinsler, Fundamentals of Acoustics