It's quite possible no greater harm has been or can be done to motorbicycling than this. Reckless riding, speeding, OUI/DWI, oversize engines, lack of safety gear - while all problematic and are ongoing threats to our ability to continue enjoying our comparatively unrestrained & unregulated activity, they're often secondary to what got noticed in the first place...
...the negative attention drawn from
everyone other than the rider of that unduly loud bike.
Not to dismiss the other issues as unimportant but I bet if the statistics were available, the vast majority of traffic stops, tickets, impounds & even incarcerations involved such a bike, the ones that constantly irritate the neighbors, the pedestrians, that parked cop you just passed.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm usually known for "to each their own" and TBH I do enjoy the growl & screams of a well tuned engine... but a two smoker with the baffles pulled or a straight piped four stroke utility motor just doesn't make the grade. Neither has the preformance gained by a proper, tuned exhaust system which in both cases involves a bit more than chunks of handlebar. Yes, you may notice some small gain by gutting the stock pipe or ditching it all together - but that's not because it's the best way to get preformance, it's because the stock systems are often the worst possible and very poorly designed, not just excessively restrictive but not even as quiet as it could be for that restriction. I've expansion chambers with extended glasspacks and header wrap on my two smokers, not only is that quieter than stock it has far
far better power than the stock pipe or stock with the baffles cut or pulled entirely. My four smoker has two 90° bends, header wrap and a glasspack with a diffuser plate added,
far quieter than straight pipe and only a little louder than stock it only roars when the throttle is pinned - at cruise speed I can hold a comfortable convo with another rider without even raising my voice. Interestingly I got a minor, but very noticeable gain in preformance when I added that plate.
Amazing things can be achieved with a bit of experimentation, in my opinion the best systems combine preformance
and reduced noise levels, usually when that combo is found it's a system that ends up being comparatively quiet at idle & cruise, it's only loud when you get on the throttle. Best of all worlds I figure, comfortable for the rider, doesn't anger everyone
and you get the vroom when ya need it.
While I'm not trying to reprimand those that are only doing what they wish with the bike they've built, rather offering some suggestions and food for thought - I will say the most noticeable effects from "loud pipes" are traffic stops, neighbor complaints and noise ordinances... and there's some very troubling aspects to that ordnance thing. Check out what loud pipes got us here in Maine, consider the possibility and consequence of your states following our lead;
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/on-noise-standards-motorcyclists-split
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/bills_125th/billtexts/HP037002.asp
