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I used to be a “my loud exhaust helps me to be seen” kinda guy. Until one day, sat in standstill traffic in my car on the M74 motorway just outside Glasgow, a rider on a BMW S1000XR, with the same loud exhaust as on mine, filtered past the window and I didn’t hear him until he was level with my rear passenger door.
Exhausts sound great, i love the sound of a nice engine, it’s utterly intoxicating but it turns out that modern insulated cars block out the noise too well to make them useful as an awareness tool.
So, i’m fine with a silent electric bike from a safety point of view. The exhaust noise was a false comfort blanket that deserves no faith put in it as a device to be better seen on the road.
Sure, it sounds nice to them. It shows an astonishing disregard to thousands of other people they impact daily. Let alone your next 10 neighbour houses who put up with it on consistent basis. ... :O
There's no increased safety factor - there's no real location or distance clue such loud exhausts provide and in my experience they only stress and antagonize other drivers :-/
if you start looking for it, or rather, start understanding that it's there, you will soon see an alarming number of people doing things solely because it makes them feel like a badass. it is 100% of the entire reason to live, in some people.
As I mentioned in other thread
1. What proportion of people with straight pipes take them on a track or engage in competitive endeavour
2. What proportion take advanced classes and have the skillset to take advantage of increase performance
3. What proportion put their bike on a dyno before and after to have a foggiest clue if straight pipe does anything
4. What proportion of them tunes the rest of their bike to take advantage of new pipe
5. For how many loud cruisers is performance in any way even remotely an actual consideration? You don't buy a cruiser for speed.
Finally, you can get high flow pipes which are quiet. But that's not really the point is it ;)
I actually respect people who say "I got it because it's loud and cool and gives me a rush" because they're at least honest a*oles, more than 98% of people who claim its for performance but don't have a clue - they're fooling themselves as much as others :-/
I don't dispute that some loud exhausts are the result of exactly what you describe, but also many are motorheads who have less restrictive exhaust systems for performance reasons or just to enjoy their vehicle (unfortunately sometimes at the expense of other peoples hearing)
Less of this, please.
It is fine to speculate, but "must" is a strong assumption. Your analogy is also based on flawed data. Yes, when riding on streets there is a chance of getting killed, but getting regular exercise reduces your chance of dying for other reasons. There are many studies that demonstrate this. Here is one:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237214-why-the-health-...
https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j1456
Tell me what you think the benefit:risk ratio is of doing jumping jacks at a gun range.
I have worked from home for a long time, but 15+ years ago I commuted by bike about 12 miles each way three times a week when the weather was good. Dominance had nothing to do with my choice to bike there.
I could ride there by bike in 45 minutes, or I could drive there in 25 minutes (lots of stop and go). Same on the return trip. My mental calculus was I got 90 minutes of exercise for an incremental time expense of 40 minutes. That I was also not polluting was a bonus.
The nearest accident I had ever was one day when I was on connector road that had recently been widened and hadn't yet picked up a lot of use. Despite there being no traffic at that moment, I've always 100% obeyed traffic laws, so I stood over my bike waiting for the red light to change. About 20 seconds into it a pickup truck came screeching to a stop just about five feet behind me - he literally locked the tires and left skid marks. Guess what his reaction was: to shout and scream to the point of spitting that I was lucky to be alive and that I wan an asshole for biking on the road. I still don't know if he saw me all along and it was a calculated dominance display, or if he was daydreaming and really did nearly cream me.
I regularly get small children approach me on motorcycle and want to pull the throttle, then get scared, then want to do it again, there's something primal about that, it's (mostly) not about other people.
I understand many people put the aftermarket pipes "for themselves", at least consciously, or at least claim so - but I feel at best, it's a degree of self-centerdness to not realize impact on others. I see it on Subaru forums too - fellow WRX/STi owners moaning about their neighbour's complaints and cops stopping them and people giving them dirty looks etc etc - obliviously blind that it was themselves who brought in on by installing ridiculous loud exhausts. A factory exhaust on my bikes gave me plenty of thrill, and while I did put a high-flow cat on my Scoobie, I searched for an exhaust with nice sound but quieter actual dBs than stock. Few things are B&W - but there is a loudness at which point it really really is about others.
(note that when you say "past 10k RPM", it sounds like you likely have a sportsbike, and as you say a stock one; those can be loud at high revs, but generally speaking the loudest bikes in my experience tend to be modified cruisers and wanna-be Harleys.
Also note that rider may not always get straight opinions from friends, depending who wants to fight what battle when - e.g. last summer, a rider was revving his throttle at a friends' cottage and boasting about his aftermarket pipes; given we were both guests, I politely nodded and meandered away... but everything for the rest of the evening confirmed the image I formed the moment I heard his pipes :-/)
I almost buy the “loud pipes save lives” angle but if you need to deafen others to protect yourself maybe motorcycling just isn’t an institution worth keeping around. That said, I don’t think it needs to come to that.
With a propeller the engine is not alone in producing noise, the propeller can easily be worse. Especially when you are perpendicular underneath an airplane crossing above.
Still, what I find even worse is that general aviation still uses leaded fuel. I know this is so "esoteric" for most people that few really care, because it is so abstract. As someone who went through a heavy metal diagnosis and chelator treatment (university clinic, lab proven exposure) I know that even the tiniest amounts still have an impact. Not a clinical impact, you are not sick. But your brain and everything works a bit worse. With tiny amounts adding up over decades any small problems you get will be attributed to "age", "stress", "it's in your head". Because while we know, statistically, that there is an impact (that is why the _medical_, threshold for lead, and others, is zero), we are unable to make any useful statements for individuals. Which means for any given person the problem does not exist, and for the population level it remains an abstract threat.
So noise is one thing, but spreading lead over the landscape - yes in tiny amounts, but I believe it still adds up and matters - to me is even more outrageous.
I apologize, for years I spread lead over some, or many?, of you guys here when I flew around the Bay Area. At the time I completely ignored the "LL" on my avgas. Only after my own clinical encounter did I realize what it meant, suddenly it was more than just a technical term.
I completely agree. My CFI has spent time making sure I understand how to reduce noise impacts of my flying. I live out in the hills which means planes and motorcycles are the only noise intrusions I get on a consistent basis. I wish I could do more for the noise issue as a pilot.
As for the lead issue, I had a small crush on an experimental that is being developed. The company is using a brand-new engine that can technically burn mogas (Motor Vehicle Gas) but the wings are constructed such that putting any ethanol in the tank is a severe safety issue. This combined with the fact that 100LL and Jet Fuel (diesel) are usually the only two fuels available, it seems like a lock-in for more lead consumption.
While there is some good news in the lead/noise department, it's not taking hold as much as I think it aught to: there are electric trainer aircraft produced now that provide very low operating costs, much less noise and release no lead. Unfortunately, I was reading that the performance characteristics make them a less desirable training aircraft than a Cessna 172 so adoption is slow.
Question for parent: I know the FAA's avgas initiative has been around for a while, do you know of any significant progress they have made in the area?
Loud pipes don’t do squat. All the noise is behind you, no one hears you coming they only hear you going, and at that point they hate you.
Now… I have an admission to make, and public apologies to give. The pipes on my current primary motorcycle are the exact same pipes I had on my previous motorcycle but they are significantly louder and it was way too late to do anything about it that wasn’t going to cost thousands before I realized.
They are not jerk levels loud, but they have enough rumble to them that I essentially do everything I can to idle out of my neighborhood in the morning (I’m a block in from an agricultural road). They don’t really reach “Harley level loud” until I’m at least 85% throttle and on my bike that is basically drag racing level of throttle position.
Here’s the thing- they were incredibly expensive and my bike is completely, _perfectly_, tuned for them with new FI programming, air intake, and full dyno tuning. No accel/decel pops, etc.
So- neighbors, world, I’m truly sorry. When I replace this bike I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Until then, know I feel like a jerk every morning in my new neighborhood basically coasting to the main road.
In SOMA in San Francisco I'll often hear motorcycles drive by that are so loud they set off car alarms along their path.
And don't get me started on the cost/benefit of car alarms.
As for the cameras, I’ll echo the sentiments of a sibling comment. You don’t want them. I lived in AZ in the mid 00’s when these things were everywhere. They mostly serve to disrupt the natural flow of traffic and caused people to make dangerous sudden stops when they should have proceeded through a yellow lights. Also, many are operated by third parties who take a cut and charge a fee to run them. If they fail to produce enough revenue they become a financial liability to the city, which will either monkey with signal time to increase ticket revenue or simply remove the camera.
To be fair, convertibles are similar. The wind noise of the open air is very loud when moving at speed, so the stereo must be that loud to compensate. There are some setups that will increase/decrease the volume appropriately as the speed changes, but that's not always the case. So as the bike is sitting at a light, the sound is still blaring at the same volume. Maybe the rider is still an asshat for not lowering the volume, but I'd go so far as saying their an asshat for refuting the concept the sound of the ride is the experience by blasting choons.
Lost count to seeing scenes like kids on H2Rs "crashing" into something at like just above pedestrian speeds.
It takes a lot of skill to drive a powerful, and heavy motorcycle. It's definitely should not be your first, or even second machine.
I'm myself on two-wheelers for 15 years still feeling that I am about to fly off a seat even on a relatively tame 300CC scooter.
When starting out, take that weekend course your local college offers - and try all the bikes in a controlled safe environment. I was shocked how much I didn't want a sports bike - the posture and low speed maneuverability were horrid. I also didn't like cruisers personally, didn't feel in control leaning back. I turned into a lifelong standard posture guy - whether city bike or adventure or dirt/supermoto... But point is, find out what feels right for you, rather than get a 750cc superbike as your first ride based on specs or review or what you think may work well.
I had fun going full throttle redline on... My cbr125, back in the day:D. More so than on some twitchy overpowered bike where I feared touching the throttle.
Not surprised in the least that there are so many accidents.
During training we had to switch motorcycles (we started on 250cc, then after a dozen hours moved to 600cc which is required by Polish law to pass the exam).
I have felt comfortable on 250cc but moving to 600cc felt like I had to learn everything again from the start.
On 250 (140kg?) I could throw my weight around and cause motorcycle to do stuff while the same no longer seems to work on 600 (210kg?).
Overall I feel better and safer on 600cc because at highway speeds it does exactly what I need it to do and place myself exactly where I want without feeling that it is overpowered and that slight mistake with the throttle is going to cause me to loose control of it.
I tried a dozen different motorcycles from 125cc to 1000cc before I made my final choice.
One disclaimer is that I am rather cautious driver/rider. As an example I never drive/ride fast in relation to other drivers. I may ride faster but only so much so I still am able to react if they make something stupid. I also spend a lot of effort learning to drive/ride safer.
When it comes to pratical matters I think that for safety it doesn't matter much how large your bike is, as long as you are properly trained. 125cc or 1000cc, your prospects in an accident are roughly the same.
Smaller bikes (125cc or less) may offer better handling if you are not well trained and you panic but on the other hand they might be less agile in traffic where it is important to constantly place you away from blind spots of other drivers, etc.
The only danger comes from speed and acceleration. But if you are an adult and can restrain yourself to safe speeds I don't think larger motorcycle is less safe.
What I mean is that it is not the size of the motorcycle but the driver that causes it to be unsafe. And unsafe drivers may prefer to choose larger motorcycles because it allows them to ride faster.
1. As a sibling said, there's the issue of weight. If you're inexperienced, it WILL bite you in the ass. Especially since the engine being very powerful and having great brakes, when "just starting slowly" it won't feel heavy. Hell, mine gives you the feeling it stands upright on itself. But try braking a bit harder while maneuvering and getting it tilted, and you better expect the 300 kg to want to get down.
2. As per 1, powerful engine + heft + (usually) great suspension give you a bike that feels very, very safe. Plus the torque from way down low never seems to quite "rush" you since you don't have to rev it. So it gives you confidence. Except that even though you don't feel like going fast, you actually are going fast. So you get fairly quickly in deep water, and everything is great while the sea is calm. The sea floor is right there! But you never know. Ride a bit too fast in a turn, and you better hope there aren't any trees around...
*you as in the driver, I am aware that the parent poster is not necessarily driving a loud vehicle.
But a needlessly loud motorcycle, particularly the kinds that "detonate/explode" on shifts/off-gas, will make me jump and annoy no matter what I'm doing - reading a book, having a coffee, mowing the lawn, going for a walk, playing with my kid, whatever... especially since unlike some similarly annoying sounds (Snoring, anyone :P), it is 100% purely intentional. This rider went out of their way to make it such, knowingly and willingly they spent money time & effort.
I see a few posts now that I know what to search for that it "relieves strain on wrists and arms", but honestly, I think standard riding position (city / adventure / touring bikes) has the most natural and relaxed body position overall, as long as you can adjust it to your body size and proportions.
I'm saying this as someone that had an aftermarket exhaust on all of 3 of my street bikes and one of my dirt bikes.
1. How many aftermarket exhausts actually add meaningful performance
2. How many people actually need / notice / use whatever performance they gain
vs
3. How many people, consciously or not, admittedly or not, just get it for bling and sound
Very few people with aftermarket parts take their bike or car on the track or competition. Very few have training to take advantage of it.
(I don't speak from a theoretical high horse - I spent thousands of dollars myself to add power to my WRX, before I finally realized that 1. Stock car was already faster than myself, and started investing in lessons/training/practice runs, and 2. The hands-down best investment I made in my car was a $200 aftermarket (additional) multi-point seat harness, as it stabilized my body/arms and enabled a much much finer degree of control. If I were to modify a car today, I'd start with suspension/control, not engine/power. For bikes, even more so - every bike I ever owned, from 50 scooter to 400cc supermoto to 500cc adventure and 750cc touring, can do amazing things in hands of a professional rider and can do far far less in my own hands; modifying it for "performance", for 98% of riders, is pointless and we're only fooling ourselves )
Even if somehow it is 'safer' for the biker it's definitely not for everyone else.
Curious where this idea came from. Some bike riders must also be drivers and it’s very obvious this isn’t true.
Even when emergency vehicles turn on their sirens I can’t tell where they are until I see them when I’m driving.
Over here in France there's such a law too, but from my 2005 car, I cannot hear that noise. I barely hear the loud motorcycles behind me too, FWIW. When I hear them, they're usually up next to me.
When on foot, that's a different story. If there's low to no traffic, having an electric sneak up on you can be destabilizing.
Then again, I also ride motorcycles and remember one day, in a quiet neighborhood, there were three people walking in the middle of the street for some reason and didn't hear my bike, which was loader than the artificial electric car noise. They weren't wearing headphones, and given the time of day were probably not drunk either.
Living by a busy crossroads, I could not agree more!
So if we come across you out on the road we'll know, "Oh, it's that arsehole".
They become hazardous in tunnels, underpasses and other closed spaces. Ultra loud pipes kill my ears' locating capabilities and I can't mentally place the motorcycle to the correct place so I won't unintentionally endanger it.
The place I live has many more motorcycles in recent years and they drive dangerously to save time (delivery guys), and it makes my life as a car driver much more harder.
If you always drive in my blind spots and have loud pipes to blind my ears, I cannot see you, even if I very hard to try. So please be a little more considerate.
I'm a motorcyclist and I'll be moving to a larger bike next year but I want one that is as quiet as practical, on bike comfort is better if you don't scream every time you go over 5K.
As a motorcycle and car enthusiast, that point is way beyond any sort of reasonable level of performance for public roads.
Of those, under 1% is like you: rediculously loud, shifting gears too late, etc.
Me and my neighbors are so fed up with those 20-something noise pollutors per week, that we're working with our regional govt to ban all motorcycles on these roads, or re-arrange our road so motorcycling is no longer fun, here. Apparently that is the only route left, now.
So congratulations: you've managed to spoil a hobby of hundreds of motorcyclists. (Besides being annoying as hell, obviuosly)
Perhaps you should spend less time worrying about a little bit of noise, especially during daylight hours, presumably on mostly sunny days.
Other 10,000 people you pass be dammed.
However, having an intoxicating piece of equipment doesn't allow anyone to drive recklessly in public roads, endangering yourself and others.
This the the thing I can tell you, as a son of a rally driver.
It is just that majority of owners seem to replace exhaust system components to give it that "Harley sound".
Here is somebody doing a decibel test of their stock Harley: https://youtu.be/4LzFC1Ts7PE?t=63
If the rider thinks it helps them get noticed in traffic, then fine, but then they should also have on a hi-vis jackets and helmet, which most don’t.
You're on the mark about hi-viz gear though. It's sometimes helpful but bikes are generally invisible.
Many people also drive with earphones on so whatever external noises they hear is debatable. I'm betting most bikers will agree that hi-viz alone doesn't guarantee that you're visible.
Small bikes are way worse. These 50cc two stroke engines, often illegally modified with loud exhaust. Not only they are as loud if not louder than a big motorbike but they are so slow they linger around for a while, often it populated area like cities.
They are popular in France because you only need to be 14 to ride one (vs 18 for cars) and you don't need a license.
That's true that there are big as well as small bikes with an horrendous sound, they are equally harmful.
I agree that they should very quickly belong to history (or museums). I wish that this new Yamaha concept will accelerate bikes electrification.
A difference is that some of them are not trying to be loud on purpose while others are. That's what triggers me. Their violence.
If smoking is not allowed I don't understand why this is, or why rules are not enforced. Changing homes is much harder than changing sidewalks.
At least there's hope. Seeing silent electric bikes go by makes me smile.
So yeah, go electric!
You're in luck, that's exactly what electric cars will do instead of being quiet!
(If not outside, you can try chatting inside. But public meeting places inside are almost all noisy too: if not crowded enough to be noisy, most will add music or TV to compensate.)
People are very good at justifying thier anti-social behaviour to themselves.
Loud motorcycle engines are the sound of the world’s hugest assholes making their giant fart in the public’s face.
Exactly. Motorcycle assholes should take their deafening fart sounds somewhere 20 miles away from human or animal habitation. Maybe to a desolate salt flat or something.
The bikes that violate vehicular noise laws should be confiscated and scrapped at the owner’s expense, and their riders’ motorcycle licenses revoked.
> slight annoyance
Subjecting your innocent neighbors to aural assault is a sadistic crime, not a slightly annoying hobby.
Next time get your decibel meter out and you will probably find you are just as offended by bikes within the legal limit. You sound like that type of person. Probably live a very sheltered life with no real problems.
Oh, bullshit: There are lots of even bigger engines that are less loud. Compare that .75-l Honda or 1.5-l Harley-Davidson against, say, a 6-liter Mercedes-Benz.
Q.E.D.
The assholes are those who come up with these feeble excuses for their antisocial behaviour.
Unfortunately I think both those are inevitable. For now I'll keep riding my 15-year old carburetor bike with no rider aids.
Speaking of rider aids, I sometimes wonder where the balance is between safety and fun. I think the sport is only interesting if it's challenging, so a self driving motorcycle doesn't seem like it's good for anything other than transportation. What about TCS? ABS? Slipper clutches?
For kids walking to school, people trying to nap, etc, loud exhaust is terrible on the ears and stressful in general. Electric bikes aren’t silent, but the whining noise is much less stressful than combustion engine noise.
It’s obnoxious and nothing else. Our cities and roads are already polluted enough as it is without the rest of the world having to suffer eardrum splitting motorbike exhausts that shake the whole building.
If you want to be seen wearing bright leds.
Blaming people for injuries are deaths caused by cars is the most discusting tactic the car industry has used to fight against road safety. Just look at any newspaper article about car drivers murdering children: they are always phrased as in "inattentive child was looking at his cellphone and died in a road".
I find it incredible that walking on a street is illegal in parts of America. Honestly, the only reasonable solution to this is a Netherlands-style law that makes the biggest vehicle automatically guilty for all accidents they caused: this alone being deaths down tenfold.
Second of all, while cars have seen half a century of safety improvements, motorcycles have lagged behind. Nevertheless, road use and traffic density have increased. Riding a motorcycle is akin to driving a car without a seatbelt, without a crumble zone and without ABS (and even then it is more lethal). Accidents happen. It is how you prepare for them that makes the difference.
Yes, I also find it incredibly stupid how the US has become so walking and cycling unfriendly. The reason why the Netherlands is different is not due to legal or regulations. It's because we have had leaders who made long-term plans to separate the various types of traffic. This means we separate the risk groups. You won't find many walking on roads with traffic exceeding 50 kph (30 mph). You won't find cyclists on highways. That is the solution.
I don't have loud pipes but I think it could help in blind spots, that's about it. I just don't ride in blind spots instead.
Moreover, with modern blind spot cameras, automatic collision avoidance systems (which will probably, cheaply, equip every electric car), I hope these concerns will completely fade away.
Maybe that's because the loud bikes have frequencies and intonation modulation close to those of a menacing voice? (or growl)
At least in Japan, some bikers (bōsōzoku) do on purpose some kind of sounds similar to somebody arguing angrily (and snarkingly!).
But I don't want to accept neither as a solution air horns and vuvuzuelas competing for my attention and for the privilege of prematurely obliterating my cochlear hair cells.
There are other ways, let's do this. We are smarter than that, aren't we.
The traffic fatalities of bicyclists in cities would like a word with you...
There are plenty of other options.
I also suspect that the bulk of exhaust noise is projected to the rear of the vehicle anyway, which makes it not especially useful as a "safety" feature if you are unsafely driving considerably faster than and weaving through traffic.
How many years have you ridden on the street, I can't count the amount of times I''ve been cut off but a blip on my SC project on a fireblade made people go back into their lane or at least made them aware of me lane splitting in just the last 5 months of riding street again in CA.
Maybe Ireland is different, but I think you have a better argument relying on automated cars saving you then no longer surviving due to a loud pipe.
Then again, Teslas seem to give way despite it's best in class monitoring system.
I'm pretty much over street riding a SS on the street is absurd because of the speeds and ositions you have to be in to ride it adequately to be responsive, so I can't derive much enjoyment of it to justify the risk.
Personally speaking if they decided to build a dedicated Motorcycle lane between at the very edge of the last lane I think that is the real solution, you don't need much more space to do it either.
Friend of mine turned in front of a motorcyclist who had loud pipes and was going about 50 in a 25 mph zone. He was complaining the whole time the EMT's were loading him into the ambulance that my friend was at fault because he had loud pipes.
I don't ride but have nothing against motorcyclists. But I wish there was some sort of tracking device that would warn me when they are around.
Last point something my parents warned me about when learning to drive. Not everyone has great eyesight or hearing, especially older people. Also older people often have limited neck mobility.
Two points of contention:
1) After putting over 40k+ miles on various bikes, I never once wished there was a self balancing feature to make it stand up on its own. At a stop light; I put my foot down; at a really long stop light, I put the kickstand down.
If the self balancing feature can function as form of driver aid. Meaning you declarivity tell the bike "I want this line with this apex"; then the bike will follow through with it's active systems. That would be wild.
2) The device right behind the rider gives me goosebumps. In a crash; seems like a great way to break your back and be pinned in the bike.
Background data:MechE background. Owned and crashed high CC several motorcycles. I'm doing totally fine healthwise; just really lucky.
As someone with 138cm height, All I ever wanted on a normal sized motor-bike is self-balancing.
So far my options to ride a normal size bike is to convert it to three-wheeler with after-market attachments(I'm not confident about the safety, Quality of such work), Going for a 3-wheel scooter like Peugeot Metropolis(Not really a bike).
Self-balancing bikes would make the dream come true for many like me.
My GF is about 5'2 and stopping a motorcycle in traffic is actually a pretty big deal. She isn't tall enough to put her foot down, without awkwardly angling the bike. The only bike should could ride of mine is a 250cc ninja. The 400cc+ supermoto was way to awkward/tall for her to comfortably ride.
I'm totally open to the self-balancing idea now.
https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/sport-touring/models/niken
A. NA in india B. Too expensive C. We get conversion kits which can add two side wheels as a rear wheel/chassis attachment which many handicapped people use here in India.
Although a self balancing bike would probably not be cheap either, at least until they become much more common.
As an example, early electric cars and fuel cell vehicles were/are uniformly non-uniform. The GM ev1 had fender shrouds, and the that corbin electric vehicle had 3 wheels.
Personally I would like an electric bike that performed and looked like a sportbike.
related: I found it interesting that the look of sportbikes actually derives from racing rules. Originally racing bikes chased aerodynamics with long streamlined fairings usually shrouding at least the front tire. Then racing rules came along that said the fairings couldn't extend past the front axle, and that set up the look.
I absolutely love motorcycles. Sadly, most people into seem to be in the game just for the sound alone. I have very, very strong feelings about the vast majority of this "community" and cannot wait for electric to take over.
Sorry for the rant. I have to endure a lot of racers during all hours. It's hardly pleasent
Also looking forward to ride electric. Currently, the range sadly doesn't enable what I want to do with my bike - ride it out of town, to the mountains, where there is no infrastructure. But hopefully soon. For inner city commuting, electric bikes are already a great fit - prices are the only problem left.
Public sentiment is the way it is because of rampant documented abuses of power, authority, and regression to childish, over simplistic views of their positions and responsibilities.
Safe driving practices are safe. Like knowing the perception psychology that makes it hard for cars to see you and try to counter that.
The difference was immediate and extremely noticable, the number of near misses went down a huge amount and the few times people got a little close I could just chuck the clutch in and give it a good rev to scare anyone off.
My biking days are done for now but if I go back I will not be going back quietly.
And from every parked car where a driver has a conversation on speakers I can hear it so well they might as well have had it outside of their car. New Teslas, BMWs.
Almost all affordable cars are not sound proof.*
Louder == I get woken up at 2am
There’s loud, and then there’s the thunderous roar that some of these bikes make because the owner has obvious mental issues.
Here is a video demonstration,
For me a good electric bike would have a range of at least 200km and include any fast charging with the base model.
I assume those silver cylinders are battery cells? It would be interesting to see lithium ion cells being exposed like this as a design choice, like muscle cars sometimes expose part of the internal combustion engine as a way to center the power of the vehicle.
Also based on the scope of this project, I assume that must be a known cell form-factor, but I had assumed most applications were using commodity 18650's unless otherwise constrained.
If the two thick yellow cables going to the rear axle are any indication, the motor is tiny and in the axle - so, not much to see there. :)
I do wonder immediately about safety. In crashes, separation from the bike is almost always good for the rider. Being strapped in via the hip harness sounds incredibly dangerous.
I wouldn't ride that faster than a SLOW walking speed in it's current iteration. I don't care how good the AI is. No surprise there are no demos of anyone riding this at speed.
https://global.yamaha-motor.com/showroom/event/tokyo-motorsh...
What I am curious about is how it actually rides. The photos and demos all look like they are out of a Boston Dynamics demo, less like they are for a bike you actually get on.
What I don’t like: this thing will be ugly as sin once you make it street legal. Also lack of fenders (which is how you avoid getting mud all over your legs and back).
As a cruiser fan, I can appreciate fast nimble sport bikes, but also can’t wait for someone to come up with an electric equivalent to the R18 or the Honda Rune.
The original text is reasonable as Japanese advertising copy, but advertising copy usually shouldn’t be translated. Instead, it should be written anew in each target language, sometimes with different content and graphics.
I worked freelance for twenty years translating Japanese to English, often advertising copy like this. Though I did my best, I was rarely satisfied with the result unless I was able to work closely with the Japanese client and write something original in English that met their needs and was appropriate for the target audience. Most clients didn’t have enough time, money, or awareness of the drawbacks of direct translation to make that possible.
[1] https://global.yamaha-motor.com/jp/design_technology/design/...
I was amused to find in one of the pictures a misspelled word. I didn't laugh but I did crack a smile. The trash can/ recycle bin in the cartoon encourages the viewer to "Picth In".
Cool bike, great story. I hope they iron out the issues that they find and this bike makes it onto streets everywhere.
I love how the Japanese people in the video linked on one post seem so accustomed to seeing cool stuff like this. I wish the guys at Yamaha all the success.
The BPG transforming bike [1] was a more promising direction. It could transform from a self-balancing Segway form for indoor and sidewalk use to a motorcycle form for roads. It looks like something from Transformers or the RideBack anime, but they got a prototype on the road. Now that had real potential. BPG never got that to to work well enough, and pivoted to another product, an off-road thing that runs on dual caterpillar tracks. Yamaha could probably make the BPG concept work. That would be a boon to delivery drivers everywhere.
The proposed animal-like haptic interface is interesting. But what do you do with it on a two-wheeler? On a horse trained for it, you can do quite a few useful moves - turn on the forehand, turn on the hindquarters, full pass (sideways), half pass (moving partly sideways while facing forward). I've owned several horses, all of whom could do those things. One was an ex-police horse who had all that manuverability and more, and could work in tight spaces when necessary.
Now, that's just listening to the rider. Cutting cows out of a herd (which I don't do) has the horse doing much of the driving. Watch [2]. The rider is in control in the early stages, getting the desired cow partially separated from the herd. But watch the part where the cow is trying to get past the horse. The horse is clearly in charge then.
That cooperative giving control back and forth is common in riding. It takes quite a bit of training and practice for both horse and rider. Miscommunication can result in injuries. It's possible to build all that into a vehicle; the control system for the F-15 fighter-bomber is notable for doing quite a bit by itself, with the pilot indicating what they want to happen and the control system figuring out how to do it, using the aircraft's many control surfaces. That takes a lot of pilot training to use properly.
Maybe if both wheels of the bike were steerable, it could do more. The new electric Hummer has four-wheel steering and can crab at low speeds.
Focus on practicality leads to incremental change. But free research and aspirational (maybe impractical) goals are what brought us the revolutionary technology we rely on today.
This is as kooky as Doug Englebart's team's work was at the time, and similar in the focus on the human/machine interface. Some aspect or later interpretation may stick just like Augment's ripples through the industry.
Startups can't do it. It takes large organizations to maintain the resources for long-term benefit like this. So I commend Yamaha for putting the cash into an impractical effort. I hope they keep it going. My kids may get something revolutionary out of it.
This was a project that wanted to change computers from being number crunching machines to "augmenting human intellect". Things like the mouse, windowing systems, video conferencing, and hypertext came out of that lab and spilled into Xerox PARC, etc. It was also the SRI end of the original Arpanet connection with Berkeley.
Other ideas, like a keyboard that worked via "chords" didn't pan out. It made it so one hand could use the mouse and the other could use the keyboard without switching back and forth. I'm sure many folks with RSI wish for that.
I would check out the "Mother of all Demos". It's out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY
And of course you can look up Englebart on Wikipedia or whatever.
And if you are interested in the topic more I recommend "What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" by John Markoff. It plays this history out more before and after.
But
> “MOTOROiD, stand up!”
Why do we have to shove the voice assist in every conceivable gadget adding yet another point of failure :-|
https://youtu.be/JmlQSegO5pM Somewhere in there, the results of "Autobots roll out" is extremely satisfying.
All hub motored bikes I rode have a very, very strong squat because of hub motor's huge torque.
I don't see how they counter it here.
I seen other EV motorcycles to counter it using parallelogram suspension setup: Kymco F9, Gogogro G1, Sunra Miku Max
This is just fluff.
“When MOTOROiD was revealed at the Tokyo Motor Show, it drew massive attention and was a prime topic of the show, but it also triggered something rather strange, especially since it is a concept model. People were already searching the internet to see how much it would cost; people were not just asking Yamaha directly, but internet forums had topics with users speculating over what the MOTOROiD’s price would be. Show visitors were also saying things like, “I don’t even have a license yet, but I’d definitely want to ride something like this,””
Yamaha makes excellent motorcycles and puts out some rather wild ones, for example the H2 models.
My modern BMW is the opposite, but this Yamaha looks like a T1000 on a mission to kill me again.
That bike looks like straight out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series)#Daemon
Or the right tool for some 'Hiro Protagonist' to deliver Pizza through the snow of nuclear winter without crashing.
Anyways, I APPROVE!
Edit: What are the 2 banks of 3 cylinders where the ICE-motorblock would be? Supercapacitors?
There's a part where a compound filled with armed guards are assaulted by driverless motorbikes wielding swords.
Good luck getting that approved for street use in the EU but what a beauty.
I wish there were driving videos available, I'll patiently wait
Also thinking of starting a local business on this, surprisingly no one else is doing it, so there's got to be a catch somewhere.
E-bikes sell for 2400+ Euros, how is that even possible. A good one could be built for ~1000-1500 at most, which still leaves enough room for a lower price and a profit from the (little tbf) research I've done.
EU has help you to get what you need and for some reason you find a way to blame it.
If there was no EU, you would need to have one validation per country.
I had an MT09 Tracer that was wobbly as f. in curves and on stright lines at high speed. The rear shock was just too loose. Same for the MT07 since 2014.
https://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/yamaha/2022-yamaha-y...
And by this I mean it looks super-cool and it'll probably kill you.
Looking forward to many more EV bikes
[0] https://barnfinds.com/barn-find-dirt-bike-1991-honda-cub-ez9...
I did read in the comments that the range of this bike is probably pretty low so the functionality of the batteries would need to improve before this is practical for long-distance trips. In the absence of improved battery life, my upgrade would not be useful.
It is probably good that I don't design and build things for a living. Some ideas are not worth pursuing.
EDIT: I have thought of another advantage to the anal probe/oxygen generator. In the event of a non-fatal crash where the rider is injured but still has a heartbeat, the anal probe could function to supply continuous oxygen to the body preventing brain and organ damage as long as the oxygen generator functioned and the rider's heart was still beating. Hardening the oxygen generator should be important so that it is shielded from crash damage. This would also negate the need for resuscitation by mouth and in the event the rider's heart stopped, the anal probe could allow rescuers to focus on blood loss/circulation.
With that in mind it should be self-contained and detachable so that it could travel in an ambulance without needing to be removed. That would also make it possible to become a discreet accessory that you would put on (in) before mounting the bike and you could just wear it concealed as you shop, refuel, etc.
Maybe not such a hare-brained idea after all?
I think I read too much.