Originally Posted by
AndrewJB
I used to dislike my bikes/wheels with the louder hubs. But, I now view louder hubs as a "safety feature"!
When I am approaching pedestrians, and other cyclists, if I pause my peddling, the hub noise alerts the pedestrians & cyclist that someone is approaching.
Try it, I think you will find it is quite effective, at least in my experience it is, especially on MUPs and other locations when the ambient noise is not too high.
That's actually a really good case for having a loud hub that I hadn't thought of.
I've considered taping a piece of plastic to my seat stay in the path of the spokes to make my bike sound like a "motorcycle" (like I did when I was a kid).
Ringing my bell doesn't work well because 50% of the time the people are startled and jump into my path, and 25% of the time people are annoyed by me ringing my bell "at" them.