Correction -- RODE. I sold it several years ago, and haven't replaced it for lack of funds. Yes, many motorcycles are VERY loud, but that's because the owners choose to make them that way (much like the owners of so many small, usually Japanese, cars in my area with aftermarket exhausts) -- I find them just as annoying and more plentiful. But conventional motorcycles do not NEED to be loud. Don't, however, get bikers started on the 'loud pipes save lives' myth -- second only to helmet discussions for contentiousness and petty argument, in my experience.

My point was that noise and 'fumes' should not be direct impediments to riding motorcycles (esp. if you live in a rider's paradise like Hawaii, as the poster to whom I was responding apparently does). But I will more than concede that an electric motorcycle would be cool -- I've considered one of them myself, for when the time comes.