After 6 hours of riding at highway speeds to go across the state to Daytona last week, I encountered my first real headache with the bike. Literally, a headache – from the wind noise. Until now when the wife and I had done day trips, we were still out for many hours but it was broken up and at various speeds, that was the first time I just did hours of non-stop superslab running and it really did leave me a bit buzzed in the brain when I got off. There’s a joke there somewhere…
So I had two thoughts – first, get some earplugs. That is the sensible solution to the problem. But I figured hey why not try and help others out as well and get some data. So I devised a way to record accurate in-helmet wind noise levels and went through 8 different configurations of windshield types, heights, visor positions and speeds, to show you visually just how loud riding is. Maybe you’ll decide plugs are the way to go too!
And of course, I had to research the plugs and decided on what look like the two industry leaders, Etymotic and Surefire. I have a couple of their top sets coming in for comparison so stay tuned for that video in a week or so.
