How important is the sound a motorcycle makes?

Power, braking, riding position, looks, and handling. These things are discussed nearly every time a motorcycle is mentioned. But what about sound? After watching yesterday’s Dominos video, we saw this new T-Mobile video—it featured a Ducati superbike to spice up their image. The sound at the end alternated between a V-Twin and an inline four. We found it distracting and it ruined the commercial for us. Then again, we’ve made purchase decisions before based on how a bike sounds. Both our 900SS and old Honda Interceptor came into our stable thanks to their great sounds.

Here are some of our favorites (videos chosen for sound quality, please excuse the video quality).

Honda CR500 – Honda doesn’t even make a 2-stroke dirtbike of any size anymore. Used to be that thousands of woodland animals would be deafened every time a man kicked his CR500 over. They came stock with nearly 60 bhp and Robbie Knievel used his to jump five billion dollars cash at an ING bank event. Legend.

Harley Knucklehead – Harley’s pushrod twin of the 30’s and 40’s employed overhead valves, always looks like a pain to start, and emits a great noise.

Honda CBX – In our opinion, the CBX produces the best sound of any street motorcycle in history. Inline sixes always sound good, but the CBX’s shriek is unforgettable.

Ducati 916 – The tambourine dry-clutch sounds morphs into a volcanic growl as these bikes roar away. There’s something very soulful about these motors, and they are more fun to ride leisurely than their inline-four competitors.

Yamaha R6 – The R6 engine was a sensation when it debut. 15.5k rpm and nigh on 200 bhp per liter at the crank. It offers an F1-like wail as its spinning to infinity.

Aprilia RSV4 Factory – This V-four makes a great roar, even with stock pipes.

The answer for us is that a motorcycle’s sound and engine character is incredibly, unassailably important.

Transforming a Honda CBX With Metzelers

We were talking to an old friend today who mentioned that he had recently picked up a 1980 Honda CBX.  Right after he got it, he had gone for a blast down some local roads in Michigan, and had been shocked at how badly it handled.  He said that it didn’t turn well at all and that he thought he may have bought a lemon.  Even so, he was determined to get a taste of the legendary CBX experience and went forward with replacing fluids and tires.

He went on to tell us that he mounted a set of Metzeler Lasertecs and said that the bike went from being unrideable to being an absolute dream.  We’re familiar with the feeling of fresh tires, but it sounded like the new Metzelers really transformed this one.

We don’t have a picture or video of our friend’s CBX on those Metzelers, but we did find this fabulous video of a CBX going up and down through the gears in North Carolina.  Enjoy what many consider to be the best sounding motorcycle ever.

UPDATE:  Metzeler’s technical directory Jeffrey Johnston had the following to say with regards to aging tires.  Fascinating stuff.

The mere passage of time (age) does not cause tires to deteriorate. Exposure to outside forces causes tires to deteriorate. Such outside forces can include road hazards, punctures, improper repairs, misalignment, under-inflated operation, over-deflected operation, excessive heat caused by over-deflected operation, excessive exposure to ozone (such as storage near electric motors), improper storage conditions, etc.

Tire companies can only have impact on a few of these exposures. Tire companies add anti-ozinants and anti-oxidants (anti-degradation compounds) to minimize degradation and carbon black is known to have excellent anti-degradant properties. Metzeler believes that since there is no way to predict what outside forces a tire will be exposed to there is no scientifically supportable age limit that can be set for tires. Some tires may be perfectly serviceable after 10 years while other tires should not be in service after only 2 years.

Learn about all the info that contained in a tire’s sidewall and how to determine its age with our own guide on Metzelermoto.com

Also check out Canyon Chasers