Why are the quietest, most picturesque towns always invaded by loud motorcycles?

[Phillycat]

First, I love motorcycles, looking at them, riding on them. I find most bikers to be lovely people.

BUT. My husband and I went with friends to New Hope, PA on Sunday. New Hope is a beautiful little town in the Delaware River Valley, with shopping and restaurants and such. The idea is to walk all around the town. Anyway, the place is OVERRUN with bikers, on big ole Harleys with purposely loud pipes. It destroys the peace and beauty of the town.

One bike was so loud when it was taking off from the curb that I literally had to put my fingers in my ears. While he was pulling away, my husband noticed that the rider was wearing EARPLUGS. Um, if YOU can't stand the sound of your own bike, dude, nobody ELSE can either!

GRR! :mad:

[Orrex]

1. An asshole who lives four doors down from me

Has an incredibly loud motorcycle that he never uses until about nine at night. Every night. He sits there, parked on the street in front of his house, loudly throttling the machine between his thighs and generally being a goddamned loud nuisance for the whole neighborhood. Sorry--did I accidentally liken his bike-fetishism with public masturbation? Silly me!

It particularly annoys me because my two young sons are trying, at that point, to get to sleep, and nothing wakes a child like a motorcycle louder than the big bang.

[Phillycat]

2. Yeah, what's with the extra-long idling? They always do that!

Is that to give me (and the other ladies) time to rip off our panties and throw them at him??

[Orrex]

3. You mean you haven't done it already?

It's like I don't even know you anymore.

[TK421]

4. I was there a couple of weeks ago, and there were some bikers

seems kind of odd for a place like New Hope, which is otherwise fairly quiet. I'm making a trip to Doylestown Borough this weekend, and maybe Peddlers Village afterwards.

Sorry about that bike noise..that kind of sucks

[Phillycat]

7. There were a LOT of bikers yesterday.

It really took away from walking around, looking at the river and popping in and out of the shops.

There's a bike convention NEXT weekend, so it wasn't that! Very sucky!

PS. Does Peddlers Village still do the huge xmas display? Or am I thinking of somewhere else?

[TK421]

10. I'm not sure what display that is...but I'm pretty sure I missed the scarecrow

contest ( as well as the apple festival ) this year :-( It's what happens when you work ridiculous stretches at your job.


It's alright, though...because on October 27th, I'll be going to the PA Renaissance Fair :bounce:


edited to add: I'm addicted to the champagne mustard and pretzels at the Grandpa Hicks shop in Peddlers Village....I have my cravings

[bluethruandthru]

5. Harper's Ferry, West Virginia!

One of the most beautiful, historic little towns. Every time I go there it seems there's some sort of Harley convention going on. 40 or 50 bikes drive around and around. You can't enjoy strolling and window shopping because of the noise...and forget eating at one of the little outdoor cafes! :mad:

[_testify_]

6. Real bikers?

Or doctors and lawyers with bikes?

[Phillycat]

9. The second one.

:mad:

[lost-in-nj]

8. Well, first

it was a beautiful day...
so the motorcycle riders were out in full force...

Second.... for some reason they are ALWAYS in New Hope and Lambertville.....
why???? I don't know
Guess its a good destination... lots of motorcycle parking....
and yeah the idlers are obnoxious

I have a neighbor with a loud bike.... leaves for work at 6:30am.....

lost

[MorningGlow]

11. Happened to us last weekend

One weekend a year is the Grape Festival in the pretty much one-street town of Naples, in the Finger Lakes (NY). It is an adorable town; I'd live there in a heartbeat if I could (it's just a teensy bit too far from our largest metropolis of Rochester). Each year the place gets more and more mobbed, which is to be expected for a harvest festival with grape pies, crafts, and wineries. Sitting in traffic on the one road into town is bad enough, but tolerable as people park in outlying areas and walk about a mile into the heart of town. But the bikers--ohhh the many many MANY bikers--could all squeeze into tight spots and did so right in the thick of the festival. And my poor toddler--he's fascinated by motorcycles, but when they fired up mere inches from the sidewalk, I thought my wee one was going to freak out. I sincerely hope that next year they'll outlaw parking in the village limits--just a few blocks, really--and that will include motorcycles! :grr:

[Phillycat]

12. For your sake, I hope so too.

I'm quite sure that tourists (and their dollars) are driven away from pretty little towns by incessant motorcycle noise.

[MorningGlow]

15. There are quite a few things they should be doing differently

More Porta-Potties, for one. :puke: But the traffic situation needs immediate attention.

[JVS]

13. Because Bikers appreciate the bucolic nature of the small towns

[Phillycat]

14. Yes, but it's not bucolic anymore with all that noise!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Haven't got a problem with noisy bikes.

So many bikers get killed every year because some assholes in cars don't check their blind spots when changing lanes, I haven't got a problem with bikers making their bikes so noisy even the worst driver can't help but notice them. I'd do it to if I had a bike. I blame assholes in cars who don't check their blind spots.

[DS1]

17. I truly believe that a substantial part of owning loud bikes is attention whoring

Hey everyone, look at ME!

You don't get that in the big city, because there's noise everywhere. But show a biker a quiet little town and it might as well be Disneyworld

[Rabrrrrrr]

18. Harriman State Park in New York - no boat motors, so it's quite - save the biker jackasses

Who ride up and down the beautiful parkways with their goddamned over-revved obnoxious "Listen to these bitchin' loud pipes, dude!" assholery, racing all over the place.

We had a cabin there on a lake, and poor fisherman SOBs would be zipping along about as fast as a sloth with their little electric trolling motors, while on the roadway any asshole biker can come in with whatever fucking asshole pipes they want, making as much fucking noise as they want.

I understand the no motors on boats rule, and I agree with it - I agree that it especially saves everyone in the park from the JetSki assholes - but I feel bad that the fisherman have to be limited while the state does fucking nothing about the motorcycle assholes.

[begin_within]

19. Julian, California, Mt. Laguna, California and Palomar Mountain, California

All three are beautiful, quiet, forested mountain towns that get invaded by huge groups of motorcycles on some sunny days.

[Richard Steele]

20. Because if bikers pulled that shit in the Bronx, they'd last about five minutes?

They'd never be heard from again, but 2 days later
you'd be able to get a nice Nazi helmet or a set of
chrome handlebars for $5 down by the Port Authority,
knowhutImean?

[matcom]

21. Loud Pipes Ruin Lives

and may endanger yours if I can catch you x(

i HATE that noise pollution

[Tyrone Slothrop]

22. I was in Gettysburg, PA a few weeks ago and noticed the same thing

It's a tiny, historic little town, and there were all these hordes of bikers driving around. Most weren't noisy, but for every 20 quiet bikes, there would be one insanely loud one. Considering that the town (and its environs) ARE the battlefield, I found it both annoying and disrespectful.

(And, on an unrelated tangent, it was VERY disquieting to see large groups of motorcycles proudly bearing Confederate flags driving around the fields soaked with Union and Confederate blood...)

[Schema Thing]

23. lol @ the earplugs

one of the most obscene things I've ever been subjected to was having several Quad Runner type vehicles blow past me on the streets of Paris. A couple of Harleys dampened the romance of the place as well (athough seeing a 68 Mustang parked amongst all the Renaults and Smart cars was a kick in the pants).

[guitar man]

24. I have a Harley

...with aftermarket exhausts on it. It is fairly loud, but not just open-straight pipe obnoxious.A lot of the excess noise comes from the way the bikes are ridden. At idle and low RPMs. my bike is throaty but doesn't set off every car alarm in the neighborhood. (that's my noise pet peeve, car alarms at 2am :grr:)

I can leave early AM to go to work, start the bike, idle it enough to get it warm enough to ride and short-shift it at low RPMs leaving the neighborhood and haven't gotten any complaints from the neighbors. When I hit the open highway, it gets plenty loud enough to alert the inattentive cell phone yapping idiots that I'm on the road with them and please don't squish me. :scared:

If these guys are just sitting around revving their motors to be "macho" they are a bunch of asshats to begin with. There is a way to be a good neighbor when one owns a bike, unfortunately, too many jackasses just don't care about anyone but themselves.

[Phillycat]

25. Thank you for being thoughtful!

Yes, I am talking about straight pipes and curb idling at high RPM's on purpose to be loud. :mad: Sounds like you know how to be thoughtful on a bike! :patriot:

[guitar man]

26. us old "true bikers"

that came up in the days when riding a customized Harley and wearing black leathers automatically made us suspect of some kind of nefarious activity learned when to make it bark and when to keep it as quiet as possible and most of us still try to be good neighbors. It's the RUBs with the $60k "storebought customs" that I see being inconsiderate most of the time. I guess they think they own the world or something.

[Patiod]

27. New Hope is a weird mix

of gay and arts culture and bikers. I've never understood that.

Jerome, AZ is exactly the same.

[sinkingfeeling]

28. We just had the 8th. annual Bikes, Blues, and Barbecue from last Thurs. through Sat.

They claim there were 350,000 visitors in little old Fayetteville (population 68,000)! The whole town was just one big roar! And traffic was at a stand still, especially on Friday night for the ZZ-Top concert! I awoke about 5:30AM Sunday and breathed a sigh of relief!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Because people who ride LOUD motorcycles

(the kinds who are loud on purpose as opposed to ordinary motorcyclists) are akin to vandals, as are people who crank their car stereos up to the max or college students who point their stereo speakers out the dorm window and crank up the bass so that it echoes off every other building on or near the campus.

They know that they're inadequate people, they're chronically angry at the world (often for things that are their own damned fault) so they try to make themselves noticed by destroying anything they can find that is clean/beautiful/quiet.

[Oeditpus Rex]

30. I live in 'The Birthplace of the American Biker'

and I've learned from bikers that modified pipes are a self-defense measure: Their volume makes it more likely that the four-wheelers will hear them, and perhaps not pull out in front of them or run over them.

That they sound really cool is just a bonus. :)

[guitar man]

31. exactly!!

:hi:

[lips]

32. Oroville

Complete gold country, waterways, parks, and plenty of markets with no alcohol restrictions.