Neighbours daily motorbike ritual

[lolaflores]

Every morning. At 10.30, give or take, our neighbour 4 doors down, starts the engine of his quite loud motorbike (I dont know the make), then leaves it to run for about 5 minutes before roaring off down the road.
He (it is a He I have checked), roars back later in the afternoon, about 4. He then does the same turning on, leaving to idle outside the house for 5 mins, then roars off.
He does this every, bloody day. The engine on the bike is loud and vibrating and it creates a heady thrum in the house. The delibrate polluting is getting on my nerves too.
Other neighbours have commented but as yet I haven't gone and said anything as I think I might be being a cranky old cow.Are there grounds for me to approach and ask politely for them to stop doing this" It has been going on for about 4 months now. Bored of it.
Added to which, there is the risk of the thing being knicked as it is left running unattended outside the house.
It is obviously his pride and joy but the shine has defintely gone off it for me.

I genuinely don't see the problem with this.

It's 5 minutes a couple of times during the day. So what?

Sparklingbrook oh it has been enlightening.
I've had employment advice. Advice on relocation and ideas for a new hobby twitching my non existent net curtains.
Should I get nets though? Am I missing out on something there

heron98 I am not trying to convince you of anything or garner your support for a petition or to lead an angry mob to the neighbours door with flaming torches.
It is just a thread about what happens near my house and I had hoped for some advice. I have received tons of it. Some helpful. Some not so.
That is all.

YY lola you have had it all. And learned things about your life that you didn't even know yourself.

As for the nets, I have found just the thing.

OOooh..Sparklingbrook, just the ticket. I;ll get Evil Kenevel on my windows. What is that monstrosity above?
Is this what you do with your time??

Yes, I have no life, clearly. Unfortunately those nets are out of stock. Sorry.

i warm my motorcycles until my bike hit operating temp before riding off on them and would continue to do so despite passive aggressive note passing. A couple of studies have been done by manufacturers including one by husqavarna/Harley Davidson relating premature cylinders wear and failures of base gaskets caused by continuous failure to allow the engine to reach operating temperature before use.

As the bike warming in question is done outside of quiet hours I feel that you are being highly unreasonable.

Let it go OP, he’s looking after his bike making sure it is working nicely so he can ride safely. Seriously there are worse things in life.

Aww bless he's looking after his bike, but sadly not relationships with his neighbours...

Funny, I was walking past a house this morning around 8am where the bike was ticking over, so loud and the vibration was pretty bad. Must be annoying OP.

Fluffy I think highly unreasonable would have involved making complaints to the council or knocking on doors and giving out. Your hyperbole is misplaced I think.

I live in a busy street, in London. Noise pollution is a real issue as are emissions from cars, buses and motorbikes. I expect bike owners and car owners to be aware of emissions and leaving a machine idling for 10 mins every day is, to my mind, alot. If you think that buses now cut their engines for the minute or so it takes for passengers to get on and that many new cars have the same technology, I wonder how a young, presumably informed person can be ok with letting the engine run, needlessly for 10 minutes.

There seems to be evidence that a short amount of time is fine to warm up an engine to prevent wear on the various parts of the engine (see! I read the links to the articles) but perhaps 5 minutes each time might be excessive.

You should have jumped on it and ridden off Vitalogy.

Vitalogy yes. Yes it is. It really does creep into your conciousness and I do tense up in the minutes leading up to 10.30am.
About six weeks ago he was doing it at 5.30am every morning.

You lost me completely at "deliberate polluting" OP! You do realise motorbikes are far better for the environment than a car right?
I live with a motorbiker. Bikes have to be warmed up, hence it being left on for a short period of time. My dp does this every time he goes out on it. He gets off as quickly as possible and does not do it unnecessarily. He only spends £10 a month on petrol to commute to work and back. In a car it was £80. Considerably less fuel is being burned and he does not add to the queues of vehicles.
You seriously need to find something else to do than east time complaining about a motorbike running during the day.
Loud exhausts are not illegal either, as someone previously said. The loudness does not determine how legal it is.

The owner was standing next to it putting his gloves on

Would be good if he could push it down the street a wee bit then start it up, but then it'll be annoying someone else

You live in a busy street in London? Then this motorbike noise can't be much more than normal traffic! I assumed you lived in a quiet little hamlet somewhere and that's why it was so upsetting to have a bit of engine noise twice a day. Definitely get some music on the go OP or just open a window and listen to other traffic which will probably be just as loud anyway. Yes it's me again, couldn't help but reply to this update sorry!!

Mr. TrebusWelcome back. I have thank you, again, for the searing insight of your observations. You know, until you mentioned it, I too thought I lived in a quiet hamlet inhabited by curtain twitchers, ready to murder the first person making a sound. Mind you, on review, I have noticed mentioning living on a street once or twice rather than a field. Does that count? I am sure you will let me know.
My eyes are now open.
Don;t stop. Is there anything else I missed?

To all those stuck on the matter of warming up the engine.
I have accepted the need to warm the engine.
My next question is whether 5 mins is excessive?
Again. If TFL have adopted technology on buses that means the engine cuts at a bus stop for a matter of less than a minute, does this by contrast make 5 minutes of idling seem excessive, especially when it is for the matter of warming up the engine?

Hi lolaflores

Is it a 2 stroke or 4 stroke. If fitted with expansions then you have my full sympathy. If it is a 4 stroke, for example, a big V Twin fitted with Termignoni's then you should be grateful as they are sooo sexy,

user1492977024 Ah jaysus love...I couldn't tell you what the feck it is. All I do know is that for a small bike it does have a roar! Not any mor e substantial than the motorbike parked up on the drive of the house beside it who's owner seems to be able to ride about on without all the sound effects.

So have check with DH (keen biker of over 30 years - owns 4 bikes ).

He said no, you don't need to warm a bike up by leaving it with the engine on.

The best way to warm up a bike is to ride it but avoid revving the engine hard until it comes up to temperature.

It equally is best "cooled" by switching the engine off - not really a surprise.

If the bike is very noisy then it's likely the owner has put an illegal exhaust on (surprisingly common apparently) or taken the baffle out of the legal exhaust (thus making it illegal).

HannaSolo I agree with all that your DH says.

Just to clarify I asked so why do people warm up bikes then?

He said so it's up to temperature and you can safely bring it to high revs as soon as you get on it.

Upshot is you don't HAVE to warm it a bike - it's just more "satisfying" to the rider to do so.

DH doesn't warm up his bikes because he says the 2/3 mins of riding (out of a village at 30mph) is more than enough to do so (and doesn't need high revs) and he likes our neighbours

If you are in a built up area OP then there's no need to go straight to high revs immediately and thus no need to warm the bike.

Hanna Your DH is right.