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It depends. Wind noise is the biggest reason why you need earplugs. The wind roar on the highway is really bad for your ears. However, if you ride at city speeds, the wind is no issue. Then your motorcycle's own noise is the dominant sound source. It varies a lot per bike how loud it is. I have no issues riding around town without earplugs on my SV, but the gear train noise of my FZR is quite loud. Loud enough to trigger my tinnitus (which i've had from birth, not related to bike riding). Both have their original exhausts. If you ride with an aftermarket, even on a very quiet, smooth running bike you'll need ear plugs. But lemme give one word of advice: always carry some earplugs with you. Just put some in the underseat storage. At some point you will go on a low speed ride, quietly puttering along to get one single loving bolt from the DIY store on the other side of town. But then you find out that they don't have that specific bolt, and you have to get onto the highway to the next city, and curse yourself because oh gently caress it is loud and annoying and bad but you've already invested so much time that you don't wanna turn around either and argh today is a bad day. Or you get caught up in the rain. Rain smacking onto your helmet is LOUD. Or you find a friend on the road who has a loud exhaust. Then you're gonna be blasted with their exhaust noise. Just keep them with you. You will at some point need them even if you think you don't.
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Apr 25, 2022 12:08
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A pill bottle is a great storage solution for earplugs, you can squeeze 3-4 pairs in and it's watertight too.
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Apr 25, 2022 12:44
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Last year I bought fancy moto specific earplugs that look like little rubber christmas trees and I really like them. They came with a little zippered pouch for storage and also the real advantage they have over regular foamies- there's a little pushing stick for jamming them into the ear canal easily. I can do it one handed without the normal faffing around with rolling the plug and lifting the ear with the other hand to get the plug properly seated and holding it in place while it swells up. Also they don't trigger my cough reflex which foam plugs often do - this is a strange but not super uncommon reflex due to some Vagus nerve fuckery IIRC.
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Apr 25, 2022 14:32
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I got some of those, including the little stick. I forgot the brand. But for me, the 'tour' variant (you can get them in 'tour' and 'race') does not attenuate enough for highway rides. Haven't tried 'race' yet. But perhaps a thing to keep in mind if anyone else wants to buy them. I mostly use them when i'm riding through the countryside, where it can be windy (and thus get loud) but not as loud as highway rides. For the highway, i still use foamies with the biggest attenuation i can get.
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Apr 25, 2022 14:55
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I have a pair of that style and while they sound better everything else about them is less convenient than foamies. The worst part about the rubber ones (and this is a very personal issue) is they get very gross and funky with earwax very quickly and are not particularly easy to clean.
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Apr 25, 2022 15:54
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I'm sure we have the same ones, mine are branded Alpine MotoSafe or somesuch. I bought the "tour" ones as well since I wanted to hear the engine revs as a total newbie - the sales pitch was that they're optimised to minimise wind noise while still letting you hear the engine, which is why I bought them. I've stuck with them for the convenience of insertion. They do get a little loud above 120km/h or so (very bike dependent in my limited experience) - not dangerously so I don't think but I'm sure it's tiring if you spend a lot of time at those speeds, which I don't. I guess I'll have to get the "race" ones as well and compare. e: I find them super easy to clean. Just mash them around with some warm water and detergent and it's a 15 second job that I do whenever I notice they've become gross again. Invalido fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 15:58
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There are hardly any earplugs around that won’t let you hear your engine on all but the quietest bikes.
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Apr 25, 2022 18:09
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:There are hardly any earplugs around that won’t let you hear your engine on all but the quietest bikes. Earplugs are good because they they block out all the normal little noises that makes you think your bike is about to grenade They're also self reinforcing because wearing them makes it more obvious when your hearing is already hosed *eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ceV24iOn0
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Apr 25, 2022 19:35
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My laserlite foamies make my lil MT03 sound so deep and rumbly lol. The best exhaust upgrade imo.
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Apr 25, 2022 19:53
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I use the 29-32 db NRR 3M or Howard Leight foamies pretty much all the time. I can definitely hear the bike noises better when they're in, ntm other cars around me, horns, sirens, etc. And music and the chattering of my riding buddy through the helmet speakers, too.
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Apr 25, 2022 20:01
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Dog Case posted:Earplugs are good because they they block out all the normal little noises that makes you think your bike is about to grenade This is definitely the most important part, yes. Sometimes if I'm only going a short distance at low speed, like from one end of the shopping mall to the other, I won't bother wearing earplugs and oh boy all those noises. It sounds like a bag of hammers falling down a tin roof
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Apr 25, 2022 20:02
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What kinda chain lube you guys use? Also I've been kinda using this product https://isotunes.ca/products/isotunes-xtra-2. Seems to work well enough, but I end up using foamies more often than not. numberoneposter fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Apr 25, 2022 |
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Apr 25, 2022 20:13
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numberoneposter posted:What kinda chain lube you guys use? Gear oil.
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Apr 25, 2022 20:47
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:There are hardly any earplugs around that won’t let you hear your engine on all but the quietest bikes. Yeah I was riding a very quiet bike at the time and had a bad case of newbie brain as well.
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Apr 25, 2022 20:54
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numberoneposter posted:What kinda chain lube you guys use? wet. (wax)
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Apr 25, 2022 21:23
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Russian Bear posted:Gear oil. Same. I tried wax based stuff and it would build up thick gunk on everything the chain touches really quickly and didn't do anything to keep the side plates from rusting. I put the gear oil in one of those old school metal oilers with the trigger and i can precisely drip some into each roller. Spin it around for a while, wipe off excess with a rag, then use the rag to wipe a coating on the sides of the chain to prevent rusting.
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Apr 25, 2022 21:34
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You lube every roller in your chain one at a time??
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Apr 25, 2022 21:42
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Russian Bear posted:Gear oil.
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Apr 25, 2022 21:42
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FBS posted:You lube every roller in your chain one at a time?? I thought this was the height of derangement, but then I got into bicycles, and the other day I caught myself taking like half an hour to lube a chain on a gn250, trying to spray one roller at time.
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Apr 25, 2022 22:16
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Slavvy posted:I thought this was the height of derangement, but then I got into bicycles, and the other day I caught myself taking like half an hour to lube a chain on a gn250, trying to spray one roller at time. The new thing is having multiple chains that you submerge in molten wax and then change out occasionally Also applying the oil only takes like literally one minute
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Apr 25, 2022 23:12
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if i dont find one of those old timey oil cans i could probably use a pastry brush
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Apr 26, 2022 00:43
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I've got one of these things. They're like $7-$15 depending on the size and whether or not they've got the flexible tube
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Apr 26, 2022 01:00
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The gear oil can comes with a narrow tip top (at least here) so you don't need one of those per se... but probably less messy.Dog Case posted:The new thing is having multiple chains that you submerge in molten wax and then change out occasionally Several of us waxed our chains once (easier in batches) when I was working at the bicycle shop, but turns out even in the driest environment it's not worth it - after a few hundred miles chain needed lubing again. It's really an event specific thing if you need to eek out every single performance gain. Just keep you chain clean and use a wax based lube like Squirt and it's only like a watt or two slower (yeah that's loving it) and way easier.
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Apr 26, 2022 01:29
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Re: ear plugs - I've got Ear Peace christmas tree-shaped plugs and I've got a bunch on lazer lites in various pockets, but I think my left ear canal has gotten larger. Ear plugs don't seal as well on that side now and I'm wondering whether the ear plugs themselves changed the shape of the canal.
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Apr 26, 2022 01:54
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The little oil cans with the trigger allow you to precisely control how much comes out, so you can get just a fraction of a drop and touch it where you want it instead of trying to hold the whole bottle while trying to aim it and keep too much from coming out all at the same time.
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Apr 26, 2022 01:57
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I am a true believer in the old man oiling can. I have three: One has two stroke oil, this is only for putting down spark plug holes and lubing piston rings One has suspended graphite molybdenum lube, this is for bicycle chains, external return springs, cables etc One has heavy weight gear oil, this is purely for assembly, so things that get pressed together, cylinder stud threads, basically anything where the manual says to "lightly oil X" The monetary saving compared to buying individual little bottles of like ten different things is huge.
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Apr 26, 2022 04:16
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Good news: I now know how to drill rivets. More good news: My exhaust doesn't need to be repacked. Even more good news: I get to rivet.
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Apr 26, 2022 17:39
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Oh hey the odometer on my Rebel just hit 1000 miles. I've gone 1000 miles without crashing or getting a ticket. Feels like an accomplishment to me! I hope to see many thousand more miles like that on this bike. Seriously, thank you to the goons who told me the Rebel 500 would be a good bike for me to get back into motorcycling; this thing rules.
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Apr 27, 2022 23:21
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I dunno about you, but the 10 years I spent not-riding was punctuated throughout with "itch to ride" phases that normally passed quickly because it wasn't practical at the time. Always a twinge of wistfulness seeing motorcycles, even in video games. I could name a dozen reasons I like riding but there's this weird addiction to steering underlying it, like White Castle burgers or crack, that I don't quite understand.
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Apr 28, 2022 01:37
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Remy Marathe posted:I dunno about you, but the 10 years I spent not-riding was punctuated throughout with "itch to ride" phases that normally passed quickly because it wasn't practical at the time. Always a twinge of wistfulness seeing motorcycles, even in video games. I could name a dozen reasons I like riding but there's this weird addiction to steering underlying it, like White Castle burgers or crack, that I don't quite understand. For me it's the way they change shape from control inputs and the dizzyingly fascinating way this interacts with road circumstance and other factors. It's like a puzzle game you can never master.
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Apr 28, 2022 01:41
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Remy Marathe posted:I dunno about you, but the 10 years I spent not-riding was punctuated throughout with "itch to ride" phases that normally passed quickly because it wasn't practical at the time. Always a twinge of wistfulness seeing motorcycles, even in video games. I could name a dozen reasons I like riding but there's this weird addiction to steering underlying it, like White Castle burgers or crack, that I don't quite understand. Oh, yeah. I spent 15 years not riding, and that feeling only got stronger over time, until it reached a point where I felt like I was always talking about motorcycles. That's when I knew I needed to work toward jumping back in.
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Apr 28, 2022 01:59
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its funny the moto stars has a video of what almost happened to me yesterday. pardon the rest of the video its just the time stamp thats so similar to my situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpcSoQU2X5M&t=137s was just cruising very similar to the video at the time stamp and thankfully not overtaking or anything and suddenly the SUV cuts completely across a full lane of into an access road for a university campus that you arnt even supposed to turn into. any ways i was able to lay on the horn, drop speed and initiate a turn matching the SUV and all of a sudden were both stopped in the little drive way thing with me right next to her window giving her a piece of my mind. she had her kid in the car so i just made it clear she messed up and played it as cool as you can given i almost got taken out. continued on my way. such is life. had a good ride after that, didn't let me rattle me, just another example of the importance of being on the ball in traffic and not hauling rear end around other cars. numberoneposter fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Apr 28, 2022 |
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Apr 28, 2022 02:03
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So this week I've traded bikes with my brother - his versys 650 for my CBR300R. It's been instructional. I've ridden it before while I was practicing for my licence but it's been a while so I found it shockingly top heavy and clumsy at first. After a couple of hours of commuting and some parking lot drills I can handle it pretty well - my inseam is long enough that I can flat foot on it, so i'ts no big deal parking with it and so on with a little practice and caution, I just cant throw it around like I'm used to without fear of dropping it if I mess up. It's nice to have low end torque and plenty of power for a change, but I simply don't find it as fun to ride as my Honda in anything I've tried so far other than straight line acceleration. It feels a bit like tractor to me honestly. It's nice to sit high up insofar as I see over cars better when commuting and the ride is much more plush and roomy that I'm used to, but I don't think I want those things at the expense of fun.
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Apr 28, 2022 09:13
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Invalido posted:I simply don't find it as fun to ride as my Honda This is a completely damning and 100% accurate description of a versys 650
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Apr 28, 2022 13:21
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Alright my turn with the usual newbie questions; Just passed my initial test and have signed up for the Beginners Course in a few weeks. I am lucky because my best friend is a serious and avid bike dude, and has been since he was probably 5 years old (now in his 50's) so he is going to lend me gear to wear on the course (assuming it will fit me of course) He was hoping to show me the very basics before the course, but his bikes are all like 1000cc and up monsters and there is no way I would or he would risk me trying to learn anything on those So; 1) Helmet being the most 'valuable' piece of gear, what should I be looking at budget wise for a helmet, I have done some research the past few days and it seems anywhere between 300-500$ you can get some really nice helmets, and anything above that is either gucci carbon fiber or all name brand, or both. My friend said to 100% get a helmet that states the visor is anti-fog or whatever... makes sense no one wants to be struggling to see! I'm not even going to look at anything except full-face. I like my face and want to keep it together 2) I had a broken ankle in mid 2021, it's fully healed now but, everything I read suggests ankle support is a big thing when riding, I assume because of the force's that can be exerted on the joint should you tip over or have the bike land on you. I really don't want to break it again (or the other 'good' one) but should I be looking at crazy supportive boots, or will 'regular' motorcycle boots suffice? Mind you it's not like the ankle is made of paper mache now, it even has a metal plate ! 3) I'm 40, and if I want to go fast I have a selection of cars for that. I think now is a good time to get into bikes because I know and respect speed, and have no intention of doing crazy poo poo, I just wanted a cool way to commute occasionally or enjoy the weekends with my friend riding around. I don't want a sport bike rocket, nor do I want a harley chopper bike, scrambler type bikes look cool as poo poo imho, but how practical are they for street/highway driving ? Again from my reading the sitting position isn't comfy for anything more than short rides 4) I see people talking about ear plugs, I have some really good noise cancelling headphones with hear-thru, so you can still hear out of them it just filters out loud noises. Are those good or bad to use ? I would have thought a good full-face helmet would keep wind noise down to a minimum anyways? I've driven manual transmission cars most of my life so I hope that the bike controls come quickly to me, I just want to be safe and careful and not injure my poor abused and ancient body! Think that's it for now, just getting started Blue On Blue fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Apr 29, 2022 |
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Apr 29, 2022 06:37
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$300-500 is a reasonable budget for a helmet. The most important thing is a comfortable but snug fit. After that, buy a helmet from a reputable brand. I'd err on the side of spending closer to 500 than 300 since your head is priceless. "Pinlock visor" is probably what you're looking for re: antifog, but there may be other options? Pinlock is all I know of. Good idea on going full face. A tall motorcycle boot "should" have ankle support, but not all boots are made equal. Generally speaking I'd say gear is a balance of protection, comfort, and price; comfort and protection are usually inversely proportional, but as the price goes up, the gap goes down. I don't have any specific recommendations on boots besides go into a shop and check out their lateral flex, and get the opinions of those who work there. Hopefully they know something! I'm not aware of any "beginner friendly" scrambler (styled) bikes. They're essentially standard bikes with knobbie-ish tires and maybe a little extra suspension travel. That said, they should be totally fine on the street and highway. Maybe if you're doing tons of hours on the freeway there are better options. I've actually never sat on one, but I have to believe the sitting position is ideal. Those bikes all have "UJM ergos" which is basically what you want for a street bike. I would always wear earplugs. I don't trust ANC earbuds to protect my hearing, and I know personally it would be extremely uncomfortable to wear earbuds of any kind under my helmet. A motorcycle transmission is a lot easier than a car transmission IMO. It's OK, even necessary, to slip the clutch.
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Apr 29, 2022 07:31
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^^^Still being a newbie myself my advice probably isn't worth much, but my newbie thinking is this: -Don't fret to much over what stuff you buy as of yet. You don't need to find the ultimate Forever Helmet. Absolutely get an approved full face helmet from a reputable maker with a pinlock (anti-foggin two layer) visor that fits your head well. Where I live such helmets start at around $200 or so at online prices and maybe 250 at the store where you can actually try them out. -All boots are a compromise. If your use case is anything like mine you'll want boots that are at least somewhat tolerable to walk around in for a little bit, or wear when eating a meal or something. I'd imagine that the knee-high hard plastic boots aren't great in this regard even if they offer the ultimate in protection. -Get a learner bike with the only concern that it be a good learner bike before you consider getting a bike you really want for any other reason than that. Do your best to disregard aesthetical or other preferences for the first year or two in favor of sensibility. -Wind noise is loud, you'll want some kind of hearing protection at high speeds regardless of what bike and helmet combo you're likely to use. You'll need to experiment with what works for you. Foam plugs always works and costs pennies a pair but there are other options.
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Apr 29, 2022 07:43
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For helmets you need to go to a physical shop and try them on, especially as a newbie there's no way to tell which one suits you by just looking on the internet. That said, if you look through this thread and the bike gear one, people are generally happiest with a Shoei or an Arai, and unless you're on a super tight budget you should try on one of those.
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Apr 29, 2022 08:58
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Buy a helmet in store, for a simple full face you don't need such a big budget. Personally I would go for ECE 22.06 now that it is available, but I don't know about availability in the US for those. Definitely get a Pinlock(-ready) helmet, it makes a huge difference. Also make sure to have a built-in sun visor, it's a priceless feature.
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Apr 29, 2022 09:41
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SEKCobra posted:Also make sure to have a built-in sun visor, it's a priceless feature.
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Apr 29, 2022 10:04
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