Wednesday, February 28, 2007

A deaf man walks into a bar... stop me if you've heard this one.

I just returned from a visit back home to Montgomery, and suffered from some ride related injuries. One of them was a persistent ringing in my ears that sounded like a low reverberating bell. This was probably a result of all the wind noise from the ride back combined with the recently installed helmet speakers that I got from Aerostich for $15. The other injury was some neck pain from the constant wind buffeting and leaning over the tank and highway speeds, forcing me to keep my head tilted upward.

To combat the potential for hearing loss, I purchased some 26dB ear plugs at The Walmart. They really do a good job of cutting down on the noise level, especially at above average highway speeds.

To fix the wind problem, I have two solutions. The first is to find a taller replacement windscreen for my bike, which shouldn't be hard to find, considering the popularity of the XJ600 globally. The 2nd solution would be to buy a motorcycle with a taller wind shield.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm, wonder which option you'd prefer!
Mom

Thomas Stromberg said...

I wear 30db earplugs or more rarely a set of Etyomics ER6i headphones on my daily commute, or whenever I know I'll end up on a highway. After a few days of hearing the wind for two hours a day, it makes my ears hurt slightly or just pop a lot. Not very fun.

On rides where I go with another rider, I usually just tough it out and go without. It's too much of a pain to take the helmet off whenever you want to speak.

During my commute, I regularly go 80mph, so I've considered a taller windscreen. My solution has been to fold the mirrors back more and lean as far onto the tank as I can. I'm not sure if you can lean down any more on your bike. Some folks actually place their feet on the passenger footpegs, but I don't think that's for me.

Tex said...

I lean over and use the rear pegs, and it gets me below the wind, however, that leads to the neck problems with me constantly looking up to see the road.

Anonymous said...

Ive been riding on randi's little suzuki s-40 and havent noticed too much wind noise even at 50MpH. I use a Scorpian ex-700 helmet and I love it so far. Once I get my triumph and take it onj the freeway and hit reall speeds Ill see if there is a lot of wind noise or not. Ill post again on thursday with pics of my new toy and how the noise its.

-Your bigger little brother

Anonymous said...

You may need a taller windscreen to help block the wind better. I havent gone on any long trips yet but flying down the highway at 70-90 isnt very loud on my triumph. I have the big windscreen on it and its high enough that I dont get much wind or wind noise, even at higher speeds. While riding on bikes without a screen or too small/low a screen The wind noise would be loud and make my ears ring. Since your not the typical short height that the sports bikes cater to, I would bet that your screen is too small/low for you.

-Your bigger little brother