Wind noise....
 

Long distance travelers: How do you deal with wind noise? I'm OK with the wind rushing over me for 15 or 20 miles, even 60 on a good day; but 100 miles per day on a long journey? The constant noise can be exhausting...

Any tips?

As an audio engineer, I'll use these whenever I have to take the subway, at a concert, or am on a very noisy city street. Haven't used them for biking because I haven't felt a need, but perhaps they can be of service:

http://www.amazon.com/Etymotic-Resea.../dp/B0015WJQ70

Nice. I've used their products before, but I've never seen them with the hole in them so things are muffled. I'll check those out!

A bandanna ?

You guys can hear wind noise? I only hear wind noise because wind hits my microphone on my hearing aids.

Tailwinds are nice and quiet, you could try just.... oh nevermind. I've had some stressful days b/c of wind noise. Sometimes I try to cover it with music, other times that makes it worse. Once it was so bad I tried to make little ear flaps out of duct tape - didn't work, apart from making me look like a total dork.

helmet ear cover
 

Works really nice, however more for cooler weather:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...QPCCGK0ZD5KKY0


But, if you know anyone handy...for example:
http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?n...uct_id=1863668
They would use a different material of course.

I bought a pair of these ("The Spoiler" by Slipstreamz) a couple years ago and had moderately satisfying results with them.

http://www.slipstreamz.com/content.asp?subID=9

Nothing miraculous, but they were OK. The other product they sell ("The Slip") probably cuts a lot more wind noise down, but I'd imagine would be hot (and look a little silly, too).

I never really notice wind noise while riding, but an acquaintance we met on the TA used some little flaps on her helmet straps that looked like elf ears. I found the look more disturbing than the wind noise but she said they worked.

I tried some DIY earplugs out of a piece of rag on a 40+ MPH descent that drove me nuts with wind noise. I didn't notice much of a difference, if any.

I think the best solution is a combination of earplugs (not so well-insulating, because you still wanna hear what's happening around you) and a headband or something that will cover your ears and streamline your head a bit. I found that the ear pavilion generates wind turbulence which accounts for the mid- and high-freq sounds, so a streamlining of the area by covering it up with some fabric eliminates a lot of the wind noise with minimal impact to your ability to hear incoming traffic and stuff. However, the low-freq, higher pressure sound still passes through light fabric (that "boomy" sound) so some cheap earplugs like purpose made foam ones or even cotton balls should further reduce wind noise. This would be the discrete, as in "not so weird-looking" solution, if you have a headband that works for you (they don't really do it for me).

Ideally you would have a hard shell around the forward side of each ear that practically eliminates wind flow over your ears, thus eliminating wind noise. Try making one of your hands into a cup over the ear (like when you imitate a fish) while riding fast and witness the magical disappearance of all wind noise. At the moment I'm trying to design something that works like this but isn't goofy looking.

LE: Just checked the Slipstreamz link. Looks like a nice, discreet solution for commuting or city riding, but I'm pretty sure it's near useless at speeds above 20-25MPH, especially if you have even mild headwind.

Learn to ignore it? I automatically block it out, and I have big dumbo ears.

It doesn't BOTHER me. But constant noise levels for long periods of time are strenuous, bad for hearing, etc. Even if they don't bother you.

I usually wear some sort of sweat band on my head, and this can be arranged to block some of the wind noise.

I do have to be careful with a cross wind (Kansas S winds!) or head winds, as I can usually hear traffic coming from behind me. On lonesome roads with poor pavement, I've been surprised a couple of times dodging a pothole by moving left as a pickup truck comes by, unheard, because of the wind.

For a quick fix, I twist the front strap, the one directly in front of my ears, and that does a pretty good job deflecting the wind.

You can also make a little helmet-strap-mounted spoiler out of duct tape.

The home made spoiler does the same thing as the twisted strap and the ridiculously overpriced slipstreamz: deflect air away from your ear. I made a few using black duct tape, and stuck a piece of styrofoam inside so it wouldn't lose its shape.

It bothers you in the sense that it's "exhausting" to the point that you want to address it. I don't see how it could contribute to physical exhaustion. Are you talking pyschologically exhausting? If so, how does that differ materially from being bothersome?

And I would like to see some support for the claim that exposure to "constant noise levels" of the type created by wind while cycling are bad for hearing. Also, how often are you going to be riding 100 miles/day?

What the hell is this? 20 questions? Why are you such a pain in the rear end? I didn't ask to present a science project. I just asked how people deal with the wind noise. If you don't have anything useful to add, why dont you try trolling on ****** instead of bikeforums?

wait till the Tinnitus kicks in :50:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus

http://www.webmd.com/search/search_r...query=tinnitus

stop riding sooner , 100 mile days are exhausting.

Actually I thought they were reasonable questions given your statement that I too found questionable. I have a hard time believing that wind noise from riding is a major contributor to exhaustion or particularly "bad for hearing". If there is some actual facts that support your comments, I'd like to hear them too.

Personally, Ive always found wind noise while riding to be pretty much a non issue.

http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/edu...me-guidelines/

Ear exhaustion is a real thing. If I mixed my projects at loud levels, they'd come out sounding like manure as the high-frequency response of my eardrums would become less and less sensitive with high-dB exposure. When I hear mixes that are far too bright and tinny, I can be almost dead sure that the engineer was either up late at night mixing and/or mixing at loud levels.

I haven't personally taken a dB-meter out on rides, but I would not be surprised at all if wind noise on descents or headwinds reached 90-95 dB or even higher, well above the "safe" limit of exposure. (Remember that dB is a logarithmic scale!)

I don't think OP was ever talking about feeling exhausted in the legs due to wind noise, but exposing your ears to unsafe levels of sound for long periods of time can be very tiring for your ears and for your mind, which is constantly trying to filter out white noise.

Google is our friend:

http://www.hearingtestlabs.com/motorcycle.htm - according to this it looks like we most have to worry about wind noise on long descents or fast-paced races. Still annoying to some, though!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/te...rssnyt&emc=rss - looks like wind deflectors that just cup over your ear and attach to the helmet strap.

and for kicks, an old thread on the subject: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...d-noise-helmet

First, since the noise is generated by the turbulence in and over the ears, I am pretty sure that what a dB meter read would be meaningless. For that matter what you hear and what I hear in the same ride would be likely to be different given different helmets and different heads. That said I don't think the wind noise I have heard is anywhere near your 90-95dB figure.

I never would have guessed that wind noise while riding at normal touring speeds was over 70dB. I think the rule of thumb for motorcyclists is that protection is needed if you will at or exceeding 60 mph for 60 minutes. Most of us won't be anywhere near hitting 60 mph for an hour on our next tour, even counting head winds.

Then again given anatomical, riding position, and helmet differences maybe what others hear is substantially louder than what I hear.

Exactly. +1

Well, if nobody else will stick up for you, I will. I get tired of wind noise myself and it'll start to get to me before I ever reached 100 miles. That's not to say that it's bad like that every trip, and I doubt you feel that way either. But, of course there are days out there on the road when the wind just hits you at the right angle and one ear or the other will get especially annoyed. Personally, I've done as others have suggested and just make something up to tack on to my helmet strap. My best frankenstein creation was using a paper plate I folded in half and then cut a smaller circle out of that. I just folded that circle over the strap and taped it together. It didn't win any fashion awards, but it did the job and that's all that matters. Then again, it's not needed all the time, just when you find yourself in that noisy 'sweet spot' for too long. For the cost and the effort involved to cure it, it's not a bad idea. Some of us are just more sensitive to sound than others I guess and if it bugs you, like it bugs me.. there's simple enough cures to get around temporarily.