Shamelessly stolen from another forum

Devil's Advocate point of view:

I'll agree with some of that, but definitely not all.

+1


The over 45 thing? A man who just got all the rugrats out of the house and has some free time and some free money needs a hobby. I say welcome to the club. Either you'll like it and get into it or in 2 years your clean, virtually unridden bike with only 800 miles will get sold to one of us real riders for a steal. Either way is great with me! I'm 31 on Monday in case anyone thinks I'm just saying that because that describes me; it doesn't.

It's not about the age or the situation. It's about the riders natural ability, interest level and understanding of the hobby. In general, if you get into it later in life, you'll likely be gettin' into it for the wrong reasons with little understanding of the pros and cons and you'll likely not invest the time and effort to become anything more than a statistic, a driveway rider or a low mileage seller. That said, as with all things, I'm sure there are exceptions out there.


I'll admit it... I like the biker wave. There's a time and place. Don't wave if you don't want to... no one is going to force you.

Agreed. However, here in MD/DC Metro area, there are rather few of us compared to places like CA and FL, so it's fairly practical to wave. If I was in a place where every 5th vehicle was a bike, or a place like Rome, Italy where 50% or more or all vehicles are bikes (motorcycles and scooters), I'd probably get out of the habit pretty quick.


I don't care how many statistics are thrown out there; in 12 years of riding I've ended a lot of cell phone conversations and put a lot of errant drivers back in their lane with good, loud aftermarket pipe (the horn doesn't have the same effect). I agree that awareness, visibility, yada yada is more important, but I'll take whatever small percentage of extra awareness a loud pipe provides. My added safety (however marginal it may be) is infinitely more important to me than your sensitive ears or your cell phone conversation and I'll never apologize for that.

Just food for thought. I'm feeling antagonistic this morning I guess. :moon:

Sorry, but I gotta take issue with the one. The loud pipe thing does one thing better than any other aspect of motorcycling: Piss of other drivers, especially non-motorcyclists. IMHO, loud pipes are the SINGLE greatest threat to motorcycling in our country. Legislation at all levels of government have been introduced against motorcycles due to excessive noise issues. Loud pipes certainly get you noticed in some situations, but so does a good aftermarket horn. The difference is, the horn isn't on all the time and isn't contributing to aligning the general public against all things motorcycle.
 
There's a big difference between straight pipe custom chopper loud and my loud. I always run something that idles around residential areas without shaking windows but you can definitely hear if I'm rolling on the open road. Time and place!
 
most of that was pretty good but I kind of like the waving thing. Maybe it is kind of silly, but this world could use more things in it that bring us together. Also i forgo the rain more for safety reasons than discomfort.
 
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I don't care how good/great of a rider you are..riding in the rain is still dangerous, we don't have windshield wipers on our helmets now do we..you wouldn't drive you're car in the rain without your wipers:poke::rofl:
 
+1
.Sorry, but I gotta take issue with the one. The loud pipe thing does one thing better than any other aspect of motorcycling: Piss of other drivers, especially non-motorcyclists. IMHO, loud pipes are the SINGLE greatest threat to motorcycling in our country. Legislation at all levels of government have been introduced against motorcycles due to excessive noise issues. Loud pipes certainly get you noticed in some situations, but so does a good aftermarket horn. The difference is, the horn isn't on all the time and isn't contributing to aligning the general public against all things motorcycle.

-------- This is NOT cop bashing so try not to turn it into the wrong idea...just an interesting story I've been keeping up with. Has to do with loud pipes and the beliefs which come with them ----------

.Oakland Motorcycle Cops Stir Controversy with Loud Pipes
Monday June 16, 2008

Civilians are usually the ones getting attention for loud motorcycle exhausts, but this time the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Oakland Police Department-- AKA "Rolling Thunder"-- has re-installed noisy aftermarket pipes onto their fleet of Harley-Davidsons. According to the article, safety concerns spread among the department three months ago when an officer riding with stock pipes was struck by a motorist who claims he didn't hear him coming. The new pipes produce an average of 93 decibels.

MIC spokesman Mike Mount is quoted as saying, "We encourage all motorcycle riders to keep the original low sound levels that meet the ... federal sound limit of 80 decibels." He adds that "It would seem counterintuitive that a law enforcement agency would go against federal standards." Especially considering that recent laws have been clamping down on loud bike exhausts, the Oakland PD's attitude seems to suggest that they are above law, or perhaps that they know something that non law-enforcement types don't.

Are the Oakland PD's loud aftermarket pipes justified, or is this a case of law officers taking advantage of their positions of power? Do you think loud pipes will save officer's lives?
 
-------- This is NOT cop bashing so try not to turn it into the wrong idea...just an interesting story I've been keeping up with. Has to do with loud pipes and the beliefs which come with them ----------

.Oakland Motorcycle Cops Stir Controversy with Loud Pipes
Monday June 16, 2008

Civilians are usually the ones getting attention for loud motorcycle exhausts, but this time the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Oakland Police Department-- AKA "Rolling Thunder"-- has re-installed noisy aftermarket pipes onto their fleet of Harley-Davidsons. According to the article, safety concerns spread among the department three months ago when an officer riding with stock pipes was struck by a motorist who claims he didn't hear him coming. The new pipes produce an average of 93 decibels.

MIC spokesman Mike Mount is quoted as saying, "We encourage all motorcycle riders to keep the original low sound levels that meet the ... federal sound limit of 80 decibels." He adds that "It would seem counterintuitive that a law enforcement agency would go against federal standards." Especially considering that recent laws have been clamping down on loud bike exhausts, the Oakland PD's attitude seems to suggest that they are above law, or perhaps that they know something that non law-enforcement types don't.

Are the Oakland PD's loud aftermarket pipes justified, or is this a case of law officers taking advantage of their positions of power? Do you think loud pipes will save officer's lives?

Oh my...too many issues to count, not enough time to address in one post, somebody STOP ME!...

1) It is not "cop bashing" to point out when a department has arbitrarily decided to a) defy the Fed Gov't and b) not live up to the laws which they enforce upon the public and c) actually IMPLEMENT a "safety" measure that has no proven significant effect.

2) Guess the Oakland bikes would be out of compliance in Denver, NYC and all the other communities that have enacted/will enact motorcycle ONLY noise standards or "must be stock pipe" laws.

3) There is no evidence that loud pipes save lives. If I'm mistaken on this point, please advise, but to my knowledge there is no science that indicates that louder is safer when it comes to exhaust. All "evidence" supporting such claims are purely anecdotal.

4) Wanna be safer through noise? Well, if you argue that louder is safer, why not a horn that you can use ONLY when called for that's 120+ db's? It's tough to argue for loud pipes is your horn just goes "beep beep" when real horns are readily available.

5) The number one cause of accidents is....wait for it...drivers! The number one reason drivers cause accidents...you won't believe it...they're unskilled or not paying attention IN SPITE of the fact that driving is the singlemost dangerouse thing that most of us do on a daily basis. Make things as loud as you want, they'll just turn up their stereo so that they won't be disturbed while drinking their coffee and texting 137 of the best friends on their drive to work.

6) Want things safer out there? Here's a few suggestions that have nothing to do with noise and would have WAAAYYY more effect:
a) Make license testing an actual test (it ain't much of test as it stands).
b) Make retesting mandatory every so often (last time I tested was 1987!).
c) Make distracted driving a real crime!
d) Make killing someone else by driving poorly a real crime!
e) Crack down, as in don't tolerate it, on drinking (don't have to be drunk) and driving!
f) Have the cops be accountable for the way THEY drive! Nobody "polices" them and far too many of them abuse that luxury by driving way outside of the law even though they'll ticket us for the most minor or infractions.
g) Make EVERY driver ride a motorcycle for one year before they can get a license for anything with more than two wheels. If everybody experienced two wheels then a) I'll bet there'd be a lot who chose to stay with us and b) those who moved on to cars would be much more atuned to the fact that we're out there and better able to see us when they should be seeing us.

That ain't the end of the list, but it's a good start...feel free to add your own ideas.


Ride well and ride safe but for goodness sake, don't ride loud or you'll align the public against us and they'll take us off the street.

Peace.
 
I'll ride a bus till I can't....then I'll move on to a trike prabably......the age thing just shows some narrow mindedness I think. I still drag race on a regular basis too. The bike I think helps keep me young and your only as old as you feel.....:2cents:
 
I'll ride a bus till I can't....then I'll move on to a trike prabably......the age thing just shows some narrow mindedness I think. I still drag race on a regular basis too. The bike I think helps keep me young and your only as old as you feel.....:2cents:

Age might make a difference between keeping it between the lines sometimes, but not always... I see a 60 year old man at Maxton running 220mph on a turbo Busa.

Funny, I am one of younger crowd there as far as bikes go and I'm almost 40.

I know that's different than the street, but don't rule all elders out~!~
 
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