Don't know - I don't do it as far as I am aware. When riding through Hereford last week, a couple of big Japanese types came snaking through the traffic the riders "blipping" their throttles, why they do it I don't know but the thought occured that it was as an audible warning of their approach - which if was the reason was a good one.
The reason why I do rev the engine on the Beemer now and again at the lights is to keep the cogs in synchro for a smooth engagement of 1st gear which even these days can be a bit hit and miss on a boxer.
|
|
Same reason as Saxo/Nova/insert stupid chavved up car drivers do it. Insecure, socially naive idiots who think they're part of some big "movement" when they're just pointless adolescents.
|
|
Ooh er. I'll get BMW approved hoodie.
|
Please tell me such an item exists! : ) Might have a look on the Bimmer website....
|
|
|
|
">pointless adolescents.<"
Your future stevied, and mine. And it's good to see teenagers continue to annoy their elders-but-not-betters. It's just a shame there has been no truly offensive youf music for many years. I quite enjoy some of the modern popular beat combos.
|
'a shame there has been no truly offensive youf music for many years. I quite enjoy some of the modern popular beat combos.'
Round here they walk around with moronic thump thump noise coming from their phones,they don't need to use headphones cos there is a speaker in the phone.The idea that it might annoy other people does not occur to them,or concern them.
|
|
|
|
Same reason as Saxo/Nova/insert stupid chavved up car drivers do it. Insecure, socially naive idiots who think they're part of some big "movement" when they're just pointless adolescents.
Not much movement stevied! tee hee........MD
|
|
|
|
>>for a smooth engagement of 1st gear which even these days can be a bit hit and miss on a boxer.
Keep some pressure on the gear selector pedal at the same time as gradually releasing the clutch lever at tickover.
First gear should drop in nicely, whereupon you can remove foot pressure and pull the clutch lever back in, ready to go.
Worked a treat on the R1200GS I borrowed in Sweden as well as it does on my own Hornet 600 where I first started using it.
|
When the bikes are just sitting there and blipping the throttle, norally it's smaller capacity bikes and inexperienced riders who think they have a point to prove.
Never felt the need to do it on my Kawasaki 1200cc but then again it had 160HP and never really needed to try that hard!!!
Seriously though, the sound of a large V Twin is something to behold if it has open pipes...
|
my old Yamaha XT350 was an absolute pink fluffy dice for stalling when it was hot........... it would only do it when you were at the lights at the head of a queue and everyone would be watching when you frantically tried to 'walk' it out of the way..........because the kick start was a sod as well and was unlikely to get you going at the first kick (the XT500 was worse apparently)
so i never let it idle when i was in that position
also....when i'm 'filtering' i sometimes do a 'noisy' downchange to ensure a car has heard me, if i think they're wandering or could be about to do a kamikaze lane change....one of the reasons why i've fitted after market 'cans' as the originals are very quiet indeed...... which after a biking holiday with 11 other riders i decided to amend, so in future they'd be able to hear me.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 02/11/2007 at 18:34
|
Another reason why I would keep a bike engine revving is that you get more gyroscopic stiffness from the extra angular momentum of the crank, and this is helpful while at low speed, because it stabilises the bike.
However, I'm sure this doesn't explain traffic light blipping!
Number_Cruncher
|
NC,
You obviously don't ride a boxer ! I blipped the throttle on a hill in Knighton last week and the blinking thing nearly spat me off (Torque reaction from the shaft and decompression of rear suspension) Very nearly embarrased myself !
|
Takes me back to my schooldays in Leith in the '60's.
First period was engineering and every day a mechanic for Edgar's, the local rather scruffy Honda dealers, would wheel his racy Honda twin cafe racer out then start it up. Lots of noisy blipping to warm it up- seemed to have no tickover and fiddling with both carbs was the norm. Strong smell of Castrol R drifted into the class room. IIRC he'd less than a mile to get to work................ but taking off down Academy Street on those greasy setts at racing speed must have been fun.
Teacher moaned a lot about it.
--
I wasna fu but just had plenty.
|
I'm with M.M.
In the days I rode bikes they mostly would not tick-over and you had to keep blipping the throttle to keep the engine alive.
Much later in life I spent two years studying ignition and built rigs to test the theory.
I then understood it and realized the main reason they did not tick-over was because they had too small a plug gap to be able to light the fuel mix which, at tick-over, has nothing like the compression ratio it does on wider throttle settings.
In other words, if you have only a 2:1 compression ratio, due to throttle closure restriction, you need a wide plug gap to light the mixture. At high compression it is easy to light it even with a narrow gap.
I don't know much about modern bikes.
|
|
Nothing to do with ignition. Some highly tuned road bikes like the BSA Gold Star single used Amal GP carbs: no idle setting. When the throttle was shut, it was completely shut. Racing engine ditto. I remember hearing Mike Hailwoods 297cc Honda 6 being warmed up: max revs 17,000 - warming up it howled up and down between 6000 and 12000 I think.
|
Nothing to do with ignition. Some highly tuned road bikes like the BSA Gold Star single used Amal GP carbs: no idle setting. When the throttle was shut, it was completely shut. Racing engine ditto. I remember hearing Mike Hailwoods 297cc Honda 6 being warmed up: max revs 17,000 - warming up it howled up and down between 6000 and 12000 I think.
Hailwood was told by the Honda engineers not to let the revs drop below 11000 as the engine had no oil pump and relied on the speed of the crankshaft to provide "splash" lubrication to the top end.
--
|
|
The engine block was cast with many oilways: there is no way that splash lubrication could get to the top end except under pressure. It was reported as pulling from 8,000 to MH max of 19,000. Which limited the life of the engine apparently....
|
"> no idle setting. <"
No idle setting so the engine stalls when you fall off. Hailwood was the best motorcycle racer ever, and he was killed by a lorry doing a U turn. Proof that racing motorcycles on the IOM is safer than going out to buy fish and chips.
|
|
I remember. And the truck driver killed one of Mikes children.
|
|| Nothing to do with ignition. ||
Tick-over has everything to do with ignition. The spark lights the petrol-air mix.
]
Ignition and spark gaps has been discussed on here before and I am not going to go over old ground again.
Our group had bikes that had an adjustment.
If you can open a throttle you can partially close it against an adjustable stop.
We are talking road bikes here, not racing bikes.
|
|
............... one of the reasons why i've fitted after market 'cans' as the originals are very quiet indeed......
I thought that exhausts were specifically designed to be quiet ~ in the interests of the local residents in particular and the population in general.
--
L\'escargot.
|
I thought that exhausts were specifically designed to be quiet ~ in the interests of the local residents in particular and the population in general.
fair point......but most big bikes make a reasonable amount of noise when 'wound up' mine (Honda Blackbird) doesn't (or should say didn't). That can be unnerving when you're passing another biker who's not using their mirrors properly as they don't know you're there & if they choose to straighten out a bend, just when you want to pass it causes problems.
The power band on most bikes is fairly high up the rev range and so it is on mine, albeit the grunt is quite evenly spread out really, so pottering around a town it's more than reasonable noise wise. Bung it down a few cogs (which you don't really need to do.... for the acceleration) and rev it and hey presto it can now be heard.... and is no longer the 'stealth bomber' it used to be as one lad put it.
|
|
|
|
|
XT500!! Nooooooo. I had one when they first came out. From cold it was one kick and ride away, but woe betide anyone who stalled when it was warm, it would fire either the first kick or the ninety-ninth, nothing in between. I saw someone in Chester with one a couple of weeks ago, kick, kick, kick, it took me back, slowly turn the engine to tdc, and then a bit, check the glass in the cam cover to see if a pip appeared, and then lunge on the kickstart and hope, happy days.
|
|
|
|
|
a couple of big Japanese types came snaking through the traffic the riders "blipping" their throttles, >>
What? Like, Suumo wrestlers on bikes? That must have looked funny!
|
|
They were big lads - probably squaddies....but the bikes were 1000cc pluses, they sounded damn good really, let's say the Boxer is "distinctive" when blipped.
|
There are some great replies here, and not being a biker I am sure that the some posts explain the worst offenders of all - 14 (?) yr old riders of those horrible little moped things in France who sit at lights/junctions etc blipping their unsilenced 50 cc, 30mph max machines.I can just picture the 14 yr old sitting there blipping and thinking
"I should keep a bike engine revving is that I get more gyroscopic stiffness from the extra angular momentum of the crank,"
I'd have loved a decent bike but my Mum, and then my wife, wouldn't let me! Both thought/think I would kill myself on one - probably correctly!
--
Phil
|
>>The reason why I do rev the engine on the Beemer now and again................. <<
I would imagine pug that revving your beemer does not make that much noise anyway. My observation of friend's beemers are that they are just very smooth and refined.
There again my experience on motorcycles is limited to my Honda 50 when I was 16. Although I did progress to a a Honda 70 but I don't think I can class myself as a biker with one of those.
|
|
|
|
Shouldn't have married yer Mum then
|
|
Chuckle - some of my friends had Honda step through, only one progressed to a "proper" bike and he's as mad as a fish and masquarading as Police Inspector.
|
masquarading as Police Inspector.
Tsk tsk... quite a serious offence I seem to remember.
|
|
|
|
I was attracted to the biker chick clothes she wore.
I couldn't help it.
|
Clealry I was responding to martin and not pug above.
The humour seems lost now.
|
|
No it wasn't I was laughing at Martin's response !
|
|
Been out today (to buy a new helmet !). The lights I stopped at I tried blipping - you can't do it with a boxer - it sounds stupid ! Thanks for the tip about 1st gear engagement, predicatbly like most advice here it works. New helmet now - Shoei Flipfront - a world of diffenrence - cost a lot though !
|
No probs, PU. Pleased to help. For peace of mind (even though you don't mention you are anything but at peace with your mind!); you won't do any damage as all you are doing is allowing the driven gear assembly to slowly rotate a few degrees whilst nudging the (initially static) baulked dogs in to place.
Enjoy the new helmet; an instructor I know swears by them and also finds Autocom (which I swear by, even when solo since my GPS plugs straight in) earpieces fit comfortably in place in them. Something for your next shopping trip? Brilliant kit, and crystal clear at any speed. Am about to buy the radio ("walkie talkie") plug in for a boys trip to the South of France in June; a number of us have intercoms with such capablity (all are Autocom, as it happens, though this matters not) so hopefully this will avoid the wasted hours when the party got separated leaving the port the last time some of us went on a foreign rideou
|
SjB
What GPS have you got - I am baffled y the huge (even huger than cars) array of kit available. Also struggling to find where to mount it on the R1200GS. I am considering a Rider to Autocom set.
|
SjB What GPS have you got
I use my iPAQ 2110 PDA, believe it or not, in to which I plug a brilliant SysOnChip antenna in to the CF card slot, the memory on this antenna also having had TomTom and UK maps loaded. ie I only "carry" TomTom when I want to use it and don't waste on board storage in the PDA. In the tiny SD card slot I have a 2GB card with all the maps for the rest of Europe. The assembly sits in a waterproof bag in my tank bag top, and is bike-powered via a PSU from RS components. Despite the most unholy wet weather on my bike trip to Scotland last autumn it remained bone dry throughout.
Having seen the benefits of GPS, SWMBO now won't venture long distance when I've taken the unit away on work; getting lost with babies on board is the excuse, but anyway! We are likely therefore to buy a second unit, and if we do it will be the TomTom Rider to make life simple; either GPS unit can then be used in either car or on my motorbike. The only design flaw I am aware of with the TomTom rider is that high mileage riders who leave the unit fitted on every run report that the power supply contacts erode away due to high frequency vibration. I know of one such rider where TomTom simply replace them each time it happens! With my 2 or 3k miles pa, I'm not going to worry.
Note - if you bike-power any device, including GPS, to which you will listen via similarly bike-powered intercom, fit a filter to remove the click-click or screeeeeeeeeeech ground loop you are otherwise likely to get. in your shell likes. Mine came from Autocom and fits between 3.5mm audio output jack on the PDA and the corresponding audio input on the Autocom. Cost only a few quid, is the size of my little finger, and works a treat.
Good luck.
|
|
Thanks - from research so-far its a Rider with a RAM bracket, but the prices seem crazed (no not him) TT's site quote £249 - retailers are selling for £400.00 soemthing very odd going on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
