Pipes - Loud or loser?

[Shadows]

That's always something I've been interested in to as traveling hundreds of thousands on kilometres in company vehicles and being passed by bikes hundreds of time has shown me that loud pipes do fuck all as it's not until the bike is alongside that you'll hear them

At least then it stops the fuckers changing lanes into you, if nothing else.

[AllanB]

I don't really care. I do not like stupidly loud bikes however I do think it is a shame that a new Triumph Bonnie sounds like a sparrow farting and most new IL4's sound like a jacket zipped being pulled up quickly.

Thumbs up to Suzuki for the stock note on a 109R and Ducati for most of their bikes.

Surely a bit of sound is socially acceptable. Bloody tree-huggers.

[Ocean1]

The XB12R had a factory race system on it, it wasn't actually quite legal but an awfull lot less obnoxious than some standarg HDs, (let alone most of the aftermarket ones).

Thing is, unlike some machines I could dial up whatever noise I wanted, at any time I wanted, just like any other control variable. Admittedly I couldn't shut it down to 0 dba but in no way could anyone bitch about it at low revs with just a hint of throttle.

OTOH, I could make anyone within a hundred metres aware thay they were sharing the road with something else any time I wanted. And that in a sound anyone with any history in motorsport could appreciate.