Ear Plugs

[opfermanmotors]

Toby's Kitchen: Ear Protection and Dirt Bike Riding

[ACMX]

Quite informative

[TMKIWI]

I was going to try some earplugs on my next ride just to see what it was like.

The tm is quite loud ( much louder then my rm was ) even tho it is standard.
Gets a bit to much after a couple hours.

PS. I am not following in jetz footsteps.

[JETZcorp]

I'm going to actually start wearing earplugs whenever I ride the 120 now.  Although the 120 itself isn't loud enough to be bothersome for me, whenever I take it out I'm always riding next to the '73 Yamaha.  As we've said jokingly a couple of times, if you were standing directly under the Space Shuttle during launch, you probably wouldn't be able to hear the shuttle if the Yamaha was idling a hundred yards away.  Being next to that thing is downright painful, and it's no fun to ride when you feel like someone's driving a railroad spike into your brain.  So yeah, earplugs are needed on that one.

As for riding the 250, I don't think it's worth bothering.  Looking at that chart that's two minutes into the video, it looks like there are a lot of things besides riding I do that are similarly damaging.  When I was driving around earlier today I probably offset an entire riding season's worth of hearing damage, simply by turning up the radio when Tom Petty came on the radio.

[Coop]

I am deaf in my right ear, have been since I was about 10 or so. I had an operation trying to restore my hearing but it didn't work. I have some loss in my left also, it's one reason I avoid talking on the phone, it is very hard for me to hear. I prefer email or text.

Anyway it's why I am a sound nazi when it comes to bikes and my nephew with his iPod. I am always on his case about turning it down because I read more than one place hearing loss is much more common today due to every kid having ear buds stuffed in their ears.

[TMKIWI]

Opferman :Is the ktm 300 standard ?
The reason I ask is, I have seen & riden past lots of them and they are very quite compared to lots of other bikes.
The EXC's im talking about.
If that is standard i would hate to know what the db's on mine are.

[opfermanmotors]

It has mods like rekluse clutch, don't know everything it has, not sure what the exhaust is.

The bike is extremely quiet though, at idle it was ~75 dB, which is quite when compared to other bikes.  Talking is 60dB.   When the bike started it was like you could barely hear it, but when it revs it does get loud, but no where near as loud as the Maico.

My bikes idle at 85dB.  That bike revs to 85dB generally but I've seen it rev up to 92dB.  Relatively speaking it is a very quiet bike.

[opfermanmotors]

If you were asking which model it is, it's the KTM 300 2 Stroke, not really sure, XCW or EXC, I think it's close ratio, at least kind of felt like it but then again anything would compared to a wide ratio 500.

[JETZcorp]

One thing to note about decibels is that they aren't linear, they're logarithmic.  So if you hear something that's 80dB, it's not twice as loud as something that's 40dB, it's much much louder.  As a general rule, a ten-decibel increase means double the perceived noise.  So if someone's bike idles at 75dB and someone else's bike idles at 95dB, the 95dB bike sounds four times as loud.  This means that the higher numbers you post, the more each number means.  The difference between 75 and 80dB will not seem like much compared to the jump from 100 to 105.  It's a 50% increase both times, but that second 50% is a lot bigger.  This is also why the 3-5dB difference your helmet makes, will seem like a very big deal indeed if you've got a bike that's rocking 110dB.

[JohnN]

One thing to note about decibels is that they aren't linear, they're logarithmic.  So if you hear something that's 80dB, it's not twice as loud as something that's 40dB, it's much much louder.  As a general rule, a ten-decibel increase means double the perceived noise.  So if someone's bike idles at 75dB and someone else's bike idles at 95dB, the 95dB bike sounds four times as loud.  This means that the higher numbers you post, the more each number means.  The difference between 75 and 80dB will not seem like much compared to the jump from 100 to 105.  It's a 50% increase both times, but that second 50% is a lot bigger.  This is also why the 3-5dB difference your helmet makes, will seem like a very big deal indeed if you've got a bike that's rocking 110dB.

You're really close with this but you math is off a bit... when sound level goes up every 6db increase is a DOUBLING of the sound pressure. (loudness)

Read more about sound pressure levels and get all kinds of charts here;
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/TableOfSoundPressureLevels.htm

I wrote an article about the problem of sound in motocross, check it out...
http://twostrokemotocross.com/2009/01/too-much-noise-are-4-strokes-killing-motocross/

[JETZcorp]

Well, I guess my source was just off.  I read that a doubling ocurred at 10dB, looks like someone just screwed the pooch on that one.  So in other words, the point I was making is stronger than I made it out to be.