BMF start the loud pipe argument all over again

[Bigjawa]

"A statement by the BMF

The BMF have received complaints from members of the public from all over the country.

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, many of our fellow citizens are at home, either working or involuntarily idle. If they can, they are taking advantage of the perfect weather in the open air.

Motorcyclists are also taking advantage of the easing of the lockdown and the same weather to blow away a winter pandemic’s worth of cobwebs.

The BMF strongly request that their members respect the rights of their fellow citizens to some peace and quiet.

Only ride bikes with OEM exhausts or service replacements that meet the same noise standards.

Do not tamper with intake systems in such a way as to increase intake noise.

Do not, especially, use elevated RPM levels in residential areas.

If members of the BMF feel unable to comply with this request, perhaps they should reconsider their membership.

Any rider who triggers a noise camera, and the anger of the public, you brought it upon yourself."

How to make friends and influence people....

[Rockburner]

They've got a point.

I don't know if you've ever lived on a popular biking road, but weekend mornings and bright warm summer evenings are constantly interrupted by unnecessarily loud bikes. Even as someone who loves the sound of a fast bike, you get pissed off very very quickly by it.

[Bigyin]

I was doing CBT's both days this weekend at our base which is near a dual carriageway that has a couple of roundabouts about a mile apart ....... All weekend we had bikes coming off one roundabout and screaming up the road or down the other side.

Bit of a hard sell when trying to present biking as a socially responsible and law abiding pastime and form of transport when the students can hear bikes at clearly 3 figure speeds as they are all on race cans

[weeksy]

I'm finding it hard to argue... I had my baffle out yesterday for 98Db driveby day, but it will go back in the road bike now for day to day use... It sounds cool on track, but on the road i don't want to be a complete pain in the arse for people.

Modifying modern bikes with 180bhp is just ridiculous for road use.

[MrLongbeard]

There's a time and place for everything, and whilst my initial thoughts on reading the post was 'sod off' you have to admit that they've got a wee point about residential areas.

I'd love nothing more than a set of straight through shortshots on my Harley, but I have neighbours and leave for work @ 06:00hrs, so I went a different route which gives me a little more noise but isn't obnoxious.

That said I do like a single on an open pipe and Harley's too, it's the screaming 4 cylinder jobbies that irk me.

[MingtheMerciless]

I like a loud pipe BUT not in residential area's, so the KTM is only just off tick over when ridden in these area's. The Akra's have however stopped the dimwitted residents of Brighton walking out in front of me whilst head down in their phones or the hire push bike ear bud wearing idiots swerving across the road so that I'm doing a stoppie trying not to crush them.

In a few years time this will be less and less of an issue as electricity takes over. I had a Harley Live Wire come past me whilst I was on the bicycle the other day. It sounded like an irritated milk float.

[A_morti]

How to make friends and influence people....

Well, they are. All the people who aren't defending an imagined right to be annoying as fuck to everyone else.

The days of race/loud exhausts are gone.

[Tomcat]

Despite all the "loud pipes save lives" BS we have been bombarded with over the years I have never seen a single piece of objective proof that it's true. Somebody will say "I rode with a quiet pipe and a herd of elephants walked out in in front of me" while my own experience is you don't hear a loud bike in traffic until it goes past. You sure as hell hear them in a quiet village though.

Now I'm not saying we should all creep around with whisper quiet exhausts. I did a good few miles on my 790 last year with the very quiet stock pipe and I didn't like it, I got no sense of what the engine was doing and was constantly looking at the rev counter, which detracted from the riding experience. I've now got an aftermarket pipe which sounds much better, but doesn't rattle the slates when I start up. I can understand why people get upset, there are few little bellends on unsilenced 125s who blast up and down the main street through our village and it gets right on my tits.

[Tricky]

The place where I , Crust and one or two others usually meet to start and finish our green-laning days in southern England is close to Loomies, a well-known biker cafe place, and if its not pissing down, we (pre-lockdown of course) usually finish the day with a pint or two in the garden of the pub just down the road from Loomies.
That always brings home to me what a menace loud pipes on bikes are to me- on a Saturday or Sunday at least, the noise of all manner of unsilenced bikes being thrashed through the gears is always there- I can understand anyone living within a few miles of the place getting pissed off with it (I would), and it also makes you realise how utterly simple it would be for the police to nick literally hundreds of bikes for speeding at the very minimum if they chose too- you hear them coming for miles.....

[DefTrap]

I'd have a bit more sympathy if I didn't have to listen to unsilenced 2 stroke garden equipment all weekend just over the fence.

[Bigyin]

My little Fazer 600 came with an open race can on it and it was loud but not offensive enough to piss off my MOT tester (Harley owner who rides around on open shotgun pipes). He didnt hear it though at 10000 revs

I actually bought a proper baffle for it from FUEL just to knock some of the noise off it for teaching students and i also had an assessment by a DVSA examiner due so wanted it a bit more respectable. Its done the job nicely so that its got a nice rasp but not loud enough to attract too much attention

The Ducati will remain standard as its loud enough on the pipe and sounds lovely without the addition of an aftermarket pipe unlike most Multistrada owners

[Bigjawa]

I'm not a fan of overly loud pipes but if you need a replacement there is no quiet after market alternative like you get for cars. Motad were the only people who made sensible exhausts and they are long gone.
If you have an old bike, a Kawasaki where the exhausts rust away in no time, or maybe you dropped your bike etc. Its either £1000 + for OEM or a perforated drainpipe from Scorpion for 150 quid. Maybe someone should be sorting out the makers of cheap stubby exhausts with easily removable baffles.

There will be more money in cameras than making a handful of silencers for a shrinking market so I don't expect much to change

Place I worked in a couple of years ago did car tuning and part of it was custom made exhausts, a lot of the work was taking boxes out of OE systems so the wee Fiesta or whatever was much louder. We got loads of things like diesel A4s and Passat's in wanting straight through pipes that made the thing sound like a tractor under load and make a loud "poh" noise on every gear change, bloke brought in a Masarati wanting "a pipe that will rattle every window within a mile" despite the fact that the guys in Italy had already made a pipe that gave the best performance for the car.

None of this was cheap and by far the majority of the punters were older than me.

[Bigjawa]

Despite all the "loud pipes save lives" BS we have been bombarded with over the years I have never seen a single piece of objective proof that it's true. Somebody will say "I rode with a quiet pipe and a herd of elephants walked out in in front of me" while my own experience is you don't hear a loud bike in traffic until it goes past. You sure as hell hear them in a quiet village though.

Now I'm not saying we should all creep around with whisper quiet exhausts. I did a good few miles on my 790 last year with the very quiet stock pipe and I didn't like it, I got no sense of what the engine was doing and was constantly looking at the rev counter, which detracted from the riding experience. I've now got an aftermarket pipe which sounds much better, but doesn't rattle the slates when I start up. I can understand why people get upset, there are few little bellends on unsilenced 125s who blast up and down the main street through our village and it gets right on my tits.

You'll have seen the stumpy can I had on the BMW. For 2 days. Had to take the fucking thing off as it was ridiculously loud and gave me a headache by the time I got to work. Stuck the OE can back on, it weighs a ton but the bike isn't gonna notice a few kilos, it also runs a lot smoother.

By far the loudest bikes in my village are a customised step through that sounds like a 500 and a kid with some Yamaha 125 thing that must be wrecking his hearing. I don't think the days of race cans will ever be over, as long as people think that the will gain some mythical and pretty irrelevant 2.5 bhp on top of the 150 they already have.

[Supermofo]

I like the Leo Vince on mine. Nice sound, that I can hear when riding but few others can. The cat does most of the silencing so it works nicely. When out with mates bikes I know when they are near me as I hear their bikes over mine. Following my brother XT660 with race pipes was a bit much after a few miles.

[Horse]

It always struck me that loud exhausts were a bit of an own goal. Imagine you're a bored or enthusiastic copper. From a mile away you can hear a bike (or two, three) approaching. You've got time to get your clipboard / radar gun / baton ready, have a last swig of coffee, adjust your cap and tug the hem of your Hi-Viz coat, then stroll out to the edge of the road.

Billy Boring rides past before the copper's woken up.

Also, IIRC, Bike magazine did a 'guess the speed' test. Louder bikes were judged to be travelling faster - double own goal.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I've got a stupidly loud FZR400, the only place it get's used is on race tracks, where it scrapes through noise testing, why anyone wants a pipe that loud on the road is beyond me, it'd get annoying very quickly, my road FZ750 has a nice quiet Micron on it.

[Bigyin]

I used to have an Akrapovic race can on the ZX636 that was louder than standard but not offensive loud so quite liked it. When i got the GS1150 i took off the cat converter and put on a link pipe and race can to free things up a bit. The noise was horrendous to the extent i became self conscious of being stared at because people would hear the noise and turn to look at what was making the racket. Being a big booming twin didnt help either. I ended up taking the race can off and putting the standard one back on.

When i did some reading on the owners forums it seemed the preferred option was link pipe and standard can for free revving without stupid noise

[Horse]

When i did some reading on the owners forums it seemed the preferred option was link pipe and standard can for free revving without stupid noise

The old BMW twins had long megaphone-shaped silencers. Internally the gases flowed in sort of 'U' shape. The guy who serviced my bikes had a 'tuning aid'. He welded a large drill bit onto a bar and used to make a hole in a plate that sent the gases on part of their route. It made it freer flowing, but not too fruity

[Yorick]

The boys over here do like their noisy bikes

Many have them short slash cut Motor jobbies and sound great.

I'm having the cat taken out of mine and getting the Yoshi silencer shortened as it's like a missile launcher

[G.P]

My 1200 Monster has Standard can on it although the CAT is conspicuous by its absence - its about as loud as I'm comfortable with and my neighbours being comfortable.
We have a local kid on a YZR125 who took the baffle out it the first day he got it and been a complete knobhead ever since.
The loudest things that go past my place in and out of the estate estate are an M5 BMW, a Nissan skyline (although he's usually just over tickover) a Chav in an ST Focus with a very stupid exhaust and waste gate and a kid in a VW polo. Oh, and a fella who drives a massive New Holland Tractor.
There's a guy on an SRAD 750 that has a super loud pipe on it. He is very slow and quiet through our road out onto the main road, where he opens up and you can here it for about a mile!
There's are loads of other bikes locally, many of whom commute. 99% have OEM cans on them.

The BMF have got a point but they need someone to write without sounding like the headmaster.