Can You Hear Me Now?

By now you've read my thoughts on safety. Most of my gear decisions are based on protection and visibility (Hello, orange helmet!). Being heard is just as important, especially when you're in the blind spot of a car at 70 miles an hour.

There are three ways to make yourself heard when you're on a motorcycle:

1. Honk your horn
2. Rev your engine
3. Scream real loud

The second one works well when riding a Harley Davidson, but not as much when you're on a touring bike.

The third one is iffy because you're competing with car noise, radios, conversations, traffic, and in the case of full-face helmets, your own head protection.

It's the first one I'm focusing on with this post.

PIAA horn: NIB. Stock horn on the right.

Since most bikes come with stock horns that serve their purpose and not much else, I replaced the stock horn on my 2009 Triumph Tiger 1050 with a PIAA Slim-Line Sports Horn. This was my second attempt; during the first attempt, the horn stopped working, but the guys at I-90 Motorsports in Issaquah and the PIAA distributor took care of me and gave me a free replacement.

On the '09 Tiger 1050, the horn is mounted right between the front fork. It's an ideal position for projecting sound and just a little tricky for replacement. I had to be really patient with the 12mm wrench--no full rotations here--each time I loosened and tightened the bolt. 

Triumph gives you just enough wire.

There's also two extra wrinkles in replacing horn on my Tiger; the stock wires are just long enough to reach the stock horn, and the mounting bolt is off-center near the left fork. To work within these restrictions, I had to carefully, very carefully, pivot the Slim-Line mounting arm to a position where I could thread the bolt through, get the wires to reach their connectors, and get the wrench in to tighten the bolt. This is probably not unusual for mechanics, but for a guy who doesn't spend a lot of time under the hood, it was a little nerve-wracking.

Rubber washers and
blue lock are extra.

The Slim-Line comes out of the box ready to mount--it's plug-and-play--but I wanted a little extra security in the installation, so I inserted rubber washers on each side of the mounting arm through the mounting bolt (to absorb vibration), and dropped a little blue lock on the threads of the bolt for an extra grip. Probably not necessary, but it didn't seem to hurt.

Since the last time I tried this I made a bit of a mess, the PIAA rep suggested that this time I mount the horn and then attach the wires. That seemed to do the trick because the horn worked on the first try.

Check out the video below to hear the difference between the two horns.

The PIAA Slim-Line Sports Horn currently sells for about $65.