Hearing protection while riding

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wjn

Race Dog
Joined
Sep 23, 2011
Messages
527
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90
Location
Paarl WC
Bike
KTM 990 Adventure
So…I was thinking about this today: we are spending massive amounts of money on protective gear when riding a motorcycle. ATGATT, and the industry seems to find better ways to protect us riders from harm every day.

But, personally, one of the areas I have neglected on many many occassions has been my hearing. I try to wear my earplugs on every ride, but sometimes just popping out for a quick 20min ride somewhere I just couldn’t be bothered. The studies have shown that a short few minutes blasting around at the speedlimit causes permanent threshold shifts and hearing loss, so the damage is done I guess.

A few times riding in a horrible crosswind on the N1 with my peaked Shark helmet on I ended the ride after 1-2hrs because of a splitting headache, even WITH earplugs in, my ears were ringing for hours after the ride.

https://www.hear-it.org/motorcycles-hazardous-to-your-hearing
For interest I did a few online hearing tests (I know, their value is limited) and now I know why my wife constantly has to ask me to do things sround the house multiple times🤷🏻‍♂️I obviously didn’t hear her the first three times😉

What is the forum opinion on the various types of hearing protection available? It seems as if the best would be to have custom earplugs made?
 
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