Comment by michh
10 hours ago
Coincidentally, I bought a 12v car horn yesterday with the intent of wiring it into my ebike's power supply with a little button on my handlebars.
Not because of other cyclists or pedestrians wearing (anc) headphones but because modern cars are so heavily sound-proofed they don't hear a bicycle bell anymore. A recent incident with an inattentive taxi driver in a brand new EV nearly flattening me prompted me to want to pursue this.
I'm still waiting for my cheap AliExpress dc-to-dc step down converter but otherwise I have everything I need and I think it should work. The horn module itself is definitely loud enough: I connected it to a 12v power supply at my desk and jumped out of my chair.
Yeas ago I motorcycled a lot, all over the world. I escalated to an air horn and hi-viz. But I pretty quickly realized that these made no tangible difference to the behavior of larger vehicle drivers. So I ended up for later vehicles with a stock horn and hi-viz only for heavy rain.
These days our family cycles a lot for commuting. It’s really easy to observe that people in vehicles treat us far better if we look like humans, wearing normal street clothes, rather than wearing high-viz or, far worse, cycling gear.
The bike bell is for polite notice, not alarming. The best alarm system you have is your voice, which is variable volume and tone. For ultimate effect slap the panels of cars, as it is very loud inside the vehicle.
Slapping panels in the US will occasionally get people trying to fight you, as I've had happen. Not really sure what a good solution to that looks like short of cultural changes.
Sadly I had to kick a few cars that thought they could run me off my motorcycle. Worked every time. All of them didn't look out the window or they would have looked right into my face. Yelling and horn did absolutely nothing.
Most of them were extremely apologetic or even shocked (as if I appeared from thin air). None of them were angry for scratching their door. Some people are just lost in thought it seems...
> or even shocked (as if I appeared from thin air)
Motorcyclists are invisible. Never rely on others seeing you, ride as if they're an obstacle you have to navigate.
You can hide a whole truck behind the A-pillar of modern cars, let alone a motorcycle. At certain angles, human eyes have complete blind spots that we're not aware of because our brain filters them out. Motorcycles fit perfectly into those.
Never hover in people's blind spots. Pass quickly or stay back. Do not drive parallel with another vehicle. Goes for cars too.
When approaching another car perpendicularly (like an intersection), remember that humans lose depth perception because their nose covers one of the eyes. A driver literally cannot tell how far you are. Our usual proxy is the distance between headlights. Motorcyles have 1 headlight so this heuristic doesn't work, but we don't realize that it doesn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94PGgYKHQ0
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Be careful with your ears! (And those of others)
A unexpected loud noise recently caused me to get tinnitus and hyperacusis, and trust me, you don't want either of them!
You know a diagnose is bad when Wikipedia lists suicidal thoughts as a common side effect....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis
May I ask what the loud noise was? And sorry to hear that. Tinnitus and hyperacusis suck.
A small firework rocket that someone launched sideways instead of up exploded within a few meters of me.
I say small but I mean tiny. One of those that are sound only, no visuals.(Why are those even a thing?)
I want to see a bike with a train horn. Cars do it all the time. [1][2][3][4] illegal and highly satisfying
People have used drills+pumps to drive similar hand-held horns at football games so it is doable.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOKgg5iCw_c
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enF0m6J7g2w [Tiny car with train horn]
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w31s5NsoOyg
[4] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLfD1AFsb1I
Oh yeah... the good old 3 or 4 tone "train" honrs from Cadillacs
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/are-you-tired-of-your-wi...
When I was commuting 60k/day on my bike in shitty suburban conditions, I used one of these instead - you get limited use per trip, but you can always fill it up with a CO2 cylinder/bike pump:
https://www.hpvelotechnik.com/en/recumbent-trikes-bikes/acce...
It is loud.
That’s a crappy pressure vessel holding 350ml of 80psi air, for about 100J of stored energy. I’m not entirely sure I’d be comfortable with that, especially anywhere with my face in the line of fire it it fails.
Your bike already has two crappy 80psi pressure vessels, why not three?
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It's a soda bottle - it fits in your water bottle holder, and you can replace it for a couple of bucks if it fails. 80 psi is pretty low pressure (typical narrow tires are 100-120) and the bottle itself is very low mass, so the fabric around the bottle should ensure safety if it bursts.
IIRC these came out in the early-mid 90s; a bike messenger trick at the time was to fasten the horn to your handlebars with velcro, so you could take it off and hold it near a car window when triggering it.
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> That’s a crappy pressure vessel
That's a huge assumption, and likely incorrect.
Good point, but I abused it pretty well and it seemed to do OK - was also in a water bottle holder so closer to the legs than anything.
> When I was commuting 60k/day on my bike in shitty suburban conditions
Here I thought my 4.5 mile (7.25 km) bike commute was a bit long...
An hour and a bit each way, took about as much time as public transit and better than a coffee for waking up. A good road bike goes a long way, and the suburbs suck for road sharing but are great for not having to stop at many lights.
The winters were rough though.
Can confirm, AirZound is great!
Yeah I had something like this for several years. Works really well for cars
I wonder if one of those recently-emerging Chinese electric blowers that sub for canned air would generate enough air volume to sound the horn usefully. Possibly not quickly enough.
I did that, but I used battery - couldn't figure out how to hook up to the e-bike's 50v electrical system (plus the DC-DC converter with high enough current...)
So I am using LiPo 3S, 2200mAh. Works like a charm. I keep it at its storage voltage (3.7-3.8v per cell), and it hardly drained the battery (there is no paracitic drain). Whole thing was like $20.
I pondered doing that but thought it would agitate other road users so decided against.
Some locales are downright itching for a reason to road rage so I don’t blame you. One thing I have to say about being a motorcyclist is that our residents in California are so considerate and have never once mistreated me for beeping, lane splitting/filtering, stalling my bike at a green light, etc.
mm, if i can't get it to work with the dc-dc converter i'll definitely go that route, good idea
Seconding the point to please not use this on anyone not in a soundproofed car.
If diy doesn’t work I’ve been using loud bicycle horn and it works great.
https://loudbicycle.com/
Gah! mini usb instead of USB C. Love the concept but it is remarkable how long bike accessories have been holding out on USBC.
At least they’re forward about it - I’ve lost count of how many bike accessories claimed to be USB C, but they only charge when connected to their specialized cable that converts from USB A to C.
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I’ve got one of these fwiw, and it’s outstanding.
if you ever want an upgrade look into nautilus air horns. I had one on my 250cc Vespa that would clear an intersection.
Needs like 18 amps if that tells you anything.
> I bought a 12v car horn yesterday with the intent of wiring it into my ebike's power supply
Putting an aerosol fog horn (available from boating supply shops) in the bikes water bottle holder is much simpler, louder and more effective.
And where does your water bottle go then?
for your safety, when people hear a car horn, they’re going to be looking for a car.
It should make a ring-ring sound but at 120 decibels?
Ooh, the telephones in the 80s! You should get one of those!
A motorcycle horn might be a better choice
I had a digital bell from aliexpress on my winter commuter because pogies on the bars prevented a typical dinger. It was very annoying and very effective; my wife referred to it as "the friend maker".
on the rare occasions where I need to loudly indicate my presence to a motor vehicle I wouldn't really want to be moving my hands - if I have time to move a hand to a horn I probably have time to brake/manouvre instead.
Generally in those situations I shout really loudly at the driver, and in general they seem to hear me
> because modern cars are so heavily sound-proofed they don't hear a bicycle bell anymore
Agreed. I had a supercharged V8 Jaguar that I could barely hear.
And my Audi has a system that actually pumps engine noise into the cabin, so you can hear that, but not the outside world.
The Fire Department I was at was looking at "thumpers" - augmentations to sirens that make cars in front of them vibrate (a la those people playing too much bass too loud).
Not just sound proofing, but inattentiveness. I've been behind people on semi-rural quiet roads with my 40,000lb fire engine behind them, lights, sirens, and airhorns, and they've driven for a mile or two completely oblivious.
Squeeze horns are usually loud enough to be heard by cars in my experience.