Originally Posted by backofbeyond

As you can probably tell I come from a prehistoric era. One where the world was turned on its head and motorcycles were strange devices that hardly ever started, and if they did, continued in a straight line until they hit something because their brakes were useless. In that world it was the low rev plonkers that dribbled oil everywhere, vibrated the fillings out of your teeth and ran their main bearings in 5000 miles. And that was because they were all small workaday bikes from the 1930's pumped up and stressed way beyond their design limits by the steroids of marketing necessity. They often fell apart faster than you could screw them together (the ones of my acquaintance anyway).

It was the new design 'million fly power' oriental screamers that were the reliable and (mostly) under stressed travel bikes of the era. Now of course we're all eco friendly and as a litre of fuel not used is a flower saved there's quite a few low stress, low rev designs around. But old habits die hard. While my head says low rev everlasting plodder my heart wants to feel some kind of adrenaline rush as the revs build - even if I'm just trying to get out of a mud pool. These things sing to your soul - and the manufacturers know it.

Quite where we'll go when electric motors replace I.C. engines I've no idea. So far I haven't heard any electric vehicle - car or bike - make a distinctive sound other than tyre noise and a faint milk float style whine. Still, I suppose they said the same when cars replaced horses - "no more clatter of hooves on cobbles on a moonlit night, no more sweat rising into the mist after a hard early morning ride, no more free fertiliser to bring on our early season roses, just that anaemic farting sound and an oil slick along the drive". It'll be the triumph of beige logic over dayglo emotion. Pity in some ways but transitions are always like that.