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Have you ever gone for a long ride and had buzzing or ringing in your ears? I know that I have and guess what it is from noise exposure! Yes, your motorcycle might be causing you to go deaf!

Last week I attended a course on hearing conservation and guess what the standard is for OSHA that requires a hearing conservation program (annual hearing test and hear plugs)? The threshold is a Time Weighted Average (TWA) of 85 Decibels (Db). This means that if on average you are exposed to 85 Db for 8 hours your employer is required to provide a hearing conservation program for you and ear plugs are mandatory for a TWA of 90 Db.

I check the old Husky and it is kicking out 94 Db and you might say well that is only 4 Db greater and I have a helmet on any way. Dbs are logarithmic and that means that the sound energy doubles for 1 Db increase and helmets don’t offer adequate hearing protection. Now Troy doesn’t need to worry about this with the old DR 350 but others should strongly consider hearing protection/ear plugs. Hearing loss is something that you can’t always realize/feel but we are being exposed levels high enough to mandate ear plugs if you were riding your bike on the job. I know will be wearing mine the next time I ride. Remember all the gear all the time.

Daryl

its not the bike noise as much as the wind noise that is the problem (at highway speeds.) definitely get some ear plugs that provide a snug fit and enjoy the clarity of focus they provide. Engine noise, sirens and horns are still audible, in fact sometimes more easily discerned because they are not being drowned out by the wind noise.

I agree on the earplugs, I abused my hearing for years and finally got tired of saying what all the time and getting yelled at so I got hearing aids. Besides not being able to hear, I could have bought a good used bike for the $3,800 I spent on the hearing aids.

tim wrote:its not the bike noise as much as the wind noise that is the problem (at highway speeds.) definitely get some ear plugs that provide a snug fit and enjoy the clarity of focus they provide. Engine noise, sirens and horns are still audible, in fact sometimes more easily discerned because they are not being drowned out by the wind noise.

Studies I have read reviews of show that ear plugs / full face helmets actually allow the rider to be more aware of the surroundings b/c they cut out the wind noise.

Daryl Perry wrote:I check the old Husky and it is kicking out 94 Db and you might say well that is only 4 Db greater and I have a helmet on any way.

Dbs are logarithmic and that means that the sound energy doubles for 1 Db increase and helmets don’t offer adequate hearing protection.

Daryl

Each 10 dB is a 10-fold increase in intensity, I, or energy.
Each 3 dB increase is a doubling of intensity.

For reference: A siren from 30 m (30 yards) away has an intensity of 100 dB.

The eardrum vibrates due to external sound waves. The eardrum then moves the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, which transfer this external energy to the cochlea. This process amplifies incoming sound pressure by a factor of 40!!!!!

No matter the specific numbers, once the little hairs inside the cochlea are damaged, they don't grow back. Kind of like my receding hair line!

I have to wear some type of hearing protection with my job, even though most of my area is right at the threshhold of 85db or less. I really don't mind wearing it, the soft foam plugs are really pretty comfortable.
They encourage us to take a few home and I always put some in weedwhacking or mowing. We have areas where plugs combined with muffs are just barely enough. My hearing is the same or maybe a little better than a few years ago, getting older and not as into the super loud dirty hippy music.

I was turned on to ear plugs by the road racers and quickly adopted them for every time I hop on a bike. Especially now, with the dirt bike helmet, as wind noise is triple or quadruple what it is with my closed helmet.

Ian

Also, I-Pods/MP3 players don't count as hearing protection!

Katbeanz I'm glad your employer is providing you with a HCP. The small foam ear plugs called, believe it or not, EARS have the highest noise reduction rating at 37 Dbs. But this is miss leading and was established in a lab. For actual field use OSHA states that you should subtract 7 and then divide by 2 to get the actual noise reduction. So the EARS only reduce 15 Dbs and that is why you sometimes have to wear plugs and ear muffs. You will see a lot of this around the airport with all of the jet engines.

Dang this is almost like work so I need to stop it.