Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
view the rest of the comments
I'm not a motorcycle driver, but doesn't it lessen your situational awareness? Genuine question.
In my experience, you situational awareness is better, because all sounds are turned down, you can still hear everything, it's just not as loud. Most of these attenuate the frequencies where the wind noise is more than the rest, which also helps.
The main reason why I say your awareness is better though, is that you have less fatigue when you aren't constantly exposed to loud noise while riding, again in my experience.
The helmet you have also makes a huge difference, just like the bike. On a naked bike you'll have more wind noise, whereas on a touring bike with a large windscreen, it's mainly engine noise.
I second this. It's absolutely nerve wracking to have that wind blasting while riding. With ear plugs there's a feeling of calm combined with the joy of riding that can not be put into words. Damn I need to get another bike. I could use some of that in my life right now.
Yes, and it's mostly the wind noise, because on my electric motorcycle I need them more than on my large touring bike with superb wind protection.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
They got that all correct, for sure. I already have tinnitus, so extended wind noise aggravates that, and loud sounds tend to get mentally overwhelming for me. Earplugs resolve both of those problems, and are just a necessity.
I will also add that riding a motorcycle is primarily about situational awareness. When you're going any speed above running pace, scenery is speeding past, the road is right there with nothing in between it and you, wind rushing - the lizard brain goes "pay fucking attention!" The same thing in a car, you have a bubble around you which is stationary in relation to your person, and your lizard brain is not triggered to pay attention in quite the same way.
This gets into some funny spaces. Your ears can only handle "so loud" before things start going weird. Muscles start tensing up to attenuate the noise. The shape of your ear canals will funnel sound so your hairs in your inner ear stop ~hearing~ and just report noise.
Turning down the overall volume, lets you hear more, because more of the sound is in your range of acceptable volumes. I'm more aware of what's going on with earplugs in, because I'm able to hear things like the tire noise of a nearby car, or the cooling fans of a semi.
This is the same reason wearing earplugs at concerts makes the music sound better. :-)
I see! Makes perfect sense