2 stroke engines for the public - should we ban them?

[Caddyshack]

tamore said:

seems most are incorrectly assuming i'm suggesting a ban on off-road bikes and power tools.

I think they think you are suggesting a ban on the two stroke variants.

[tamore]

Caddyshack said:

Yes, come and smell this and then hear it at 11,000 rpm….it should cure you

going round a race track at full chat, i'd imaging it's a great spectacle.

[Electro1980]

tamore said:

seems most are incorrectly assuming i'm suggesting a ban on off-road bikes and power tools.

You’re talking about banning a fuel, that is on the way out quickly anyway, for no apparent reason other than you don’t like it. Yes, two stroke engines can be annoying to some, or in the wrong place. But you can’t ban something because of antisocial behaviour by a few, or just because you personally find it annoying. And anyway, there are far bigger issues than a few MX bikes in the automotive world:

Loud exhausts, especially with fake pops and bangs, being driven with a heavy right foot at silly hours.
Sports bikes with de-baffled/not road legal exhausts you can hear from (literally) miles away.
Off road vehicles of all types being used illegally.

All of these need addressing before worrying about people doing something perfectly legal. Unfortunately there are a few people who think the countryside is there for them alone to enjoy or work to some made up law. See - people who deliberately get in the way of mountain bikes ridding legally, or many others.

[AndySheff]

I'd imagine power tools are always going to run on some sort of combustion engine. When you're in the middle of the forest working all day - or just if you have a lot to do - Batteries are no good. Fine for a quick job, otherwise useless. I took a battery powered strimmer back last year - battery lasted about 5 minutes. Completely useless. Luckily for me I have a 2stroke strimmer And 2 chainsaws. And an outboard for the rowing boat

[carlo996]

tamore said:

seems most are incorrectly assuming i'm suggesting a ban on off-road bikes and power tools.

Not going as you thought?

[FiF]

carlo996 said:

tamore said:

seems most are incorrectly assuming i'm suggesting a ban on off-road bikes and power tools.

Not going as you thought?

I think the OP's basic problem is that he opened with

tamore said:

should 2 stroke engined vehicles/ tools/ etc be banned for the public? the answer is yes by the way.

Then when it didn't go his way started farting and fannying about with shifting position away from that original rather clear and uncompromising statement.

So there are two principal ways forward here,
1) a clear but probably long detailed statement as to exactly what they do propose, why and what solutions or compromises to be available to those whose leisure or professional activities seem to annoy the OP.
Or
2) Just leave it. Some might say STFU, but that would be rather rude.

[CypSIdders]

Well OP, speaking as an ex Bakewell resident!

Although you live in the Peak District, you surely don't live within the Peak District National Park.
If you did you would know full well that the Peak District National Park Authority, (PDNPA), being an utterly corrupt, self-serving, unaccountable QUANGO, closed access to 90+% of all green lanes, with no mandate to do so, (apart from their own Nimbyism), no consultation and no vote!
Maybe you should move there, instant nirvana awaits you!

[Super Sonic]

tamore said:

seems most are incorrectly assuming i'm suggesting a ban on off-road bikes and power tools.

Aren't these the only things that can be bought new w 2t engines? (And possibly container ships)

[Griffith4ever]

CypSIdders said:

Well OP, speaking as an ex Bakewell resident!

Although you live in the Peak District, you surely don't live within the Peak District National Park.
If you did you would know full well that the Peak District National Park Authority, (PDNPA), being an utterly corrupt, self-serving, unaccountable QUANGO, closed access to 90+% of all green lanes, with no mandate to do so, (apart from their own Nimbyism), no consultation and no vote!
Maybe you should move there, instant nirvana awaits you!

Or Somerset - they did the same here. Lost nearly all our lanes overnight - hence I ride the surrounding counties.

[Pan Pan Pan]

markymarkthree said:

tamore said:

the reason for my comments is experience of living in the peak district, which is absolutely inundated with dirt bikes at the weekends.

nothing spoils a nice walk in the hills like the stink of 2 stroke hanging in the air as a line of dirt bikes go past, accompanied by the irritating noise they make. don't get me wrong, i get exploring on dirt bikes, but just think there could be a better way of propelling them

then you get someone who has got hold of a felled tree hacking it up with a chainsaw all day. serenaded by a 2 stroke engine. lovely.

Edited by tamore on Friday 31st March 07:52

I must admit the sound of a whining 2 stroke is a bit annoying. However 4 stoke thumpers is music to me ears.

The sound of people whining about banning 2 strokes is even more annoying and repulsive on a website called Pistonheads!

[TrophyMax]

This thread made me fire up my T5 Vespa, for no other reason than to hear it run for 10 minutes

[Deranged Rover]

tamore said:

the fact i'm irritated by users of 2 strokers on a weekly basis gives me a bias on the subject. it's a forum.

I’m irritated by motor-bicycle riders on an almost daily basis, but demanding a ban on them just because they wind me up seems a little excessive.

Mind you, if they ever did get banned, I might let off a party popper or two.

[tamore]

CypSIdders said:

Well OP, speaking as an ex Bakewell resident!

Although you live in the Peak District, you surely don't live within the Peak District National Park.
If you did you would know full well that the Peak District National Park Authority, (PDNPA), being an utterly corrupt, self-serving, unaccountable QUANGO, closed access to 90+% of all green lanes, with no mandate to do so, (apart from their own Nimbyism), no consultation and no vote!
Maybe you should move there, instant nirvana awaits you!

we're bang, smack in the middle of it and agreed PDNPA are an awful organisation. oh, just had a couple of pints in the joiners too.

lets be honest, i've miffed fans of blue smoke spewing contraptions as much as they have me and that's the end of it. it'll pass. it's just an internet forum and last time i checked i didn't have the power to make such decisions. i'm nowhere near corrupt enough for a governmental post, so i'll just have to wait for the things to be phased out.

[JuanCarlosFandango]

I live in the countryside too and there's some woods across the field where they regularly chop up wood. I really like the sound of a chainsaw (at a reasonable distance), and the thought that some lucky bugger is cutting up logs.

[CypSIdders]

tamore said:

we're bang, smack in the middle of it and agreed PDNPA are an awful organisation. oh, just had a couple of pints in the joiners too.

Well, in that case you must be really unlucky, living where you do!

[anonymous-user]

tamore said:

CypSIdders said:

Well OP, speaking as an ex Bakewell resident!

Although you live in the Peak District, you surely don't live within the Peak District National Park.
If you did you would know full well that the Peak District National Park Authority, (PDNPA), being an utterly corrupt, self-serving, unaccountable QUANGO, closed access to 90+% of all green lanes, with no mandate to do so, (apart from their own Nimbyism), no consultation and no vote!
Maybe you should move there, instant nirvana awaits you!

we're bang, smack in the middle of it and agreed PDNPA are an awful organisation. oh, just had a couple of pints in the joiners too.

lets be honest, i've miffed fans of blue smoke spewing contraptions as much as they have me and that's the end of it. it'll pass. it's just an internet forum and last time i checked i didn't have the power to make such decisions. i'm nowhere near corrupt enough for a governmental post, so i'll just have to wait for the things to be phased out.

You appear to have owned quite a few cars with unnecessarily large engines and I'll take a guess that you don't need a 4.2 TVR for essential business use..? I wonder how many people heard your car from a short (or lets be honest, quite a long) distance away when you were giving it the beans and found that it was spoiling their enjoyment of their walk or the quiet afternoon?

I think the only course of action open to you is that you should ban yourself.

[Cotty]

I remember when I used to race karts at Buckmore Park, you could smell the 2stroke from the motorway.

I love the smell of 2 stroke in the morning, it smells like victory


The OP can jog on

[DonkeyApple]

LimaDelta said:

Join us tomorrow for our next instalment of "lets ban things I don't like".

Immigrants! They produce CO2.

You're right that we have aged into a culture where people can pretty much go and do anything they desire but what many seem to desire is to just stay indoors drawing up lists of people and objects that someone else must ban and others must pay for.

It's clearly a very popular hobby but like train spotting it's all a bit 'work for the council'.

Dropping 2 stroke outboard sales to the leisure market made sense as the direct pollution to waterways was clear and if someone is doing something for leisure they can pay to do it properly or not at all.

2 stroke bikes seem to have disappeared. And in the transport world it's a poverty driven power solution and so it has just faded away in the U.K.

I'm not sure there's any point in seeking to ban something that no one wants to buy when they have Uber and it doesn't mess up their hair and make-up.

Are a few trials bikes being banned going to achieve anything other than cost to the taxpayer and upsetting a few people who aren't upsetting anyone?

So in the U.K. what does that leave? Garden tools? Those little Chinese carbs are so rubbish that I suspect they have done more to move people to electric garden tools than anything else. Do they need banning? I don't think so. Most people with the brains to own property have the brains to work out whether they really want to pay for the hassle of a 2 stroke device over the simplicity of a modern cordless.

I'll tell you what I would ban. People who use 2 stroke garden equipment or petrol mowers on a Sunday. Technically I wouldn't be seeking a ban but just a law that permitted them being battered to death with their own device, so nothing particularly punitive like a ban.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Sunday 2nd April 09:32

[rodericb]

vaud said:

Yes please, for some, not least for the crappy noisy leaf blowers.

Leaf blowers - well that's a whole other can of worms! Funny thing about 'em is that the electric ones are noisy as heck too. I think there's some theory that the invention of the leaf blower and its burgeoning use coincides with the decline of western civilisation..... They're the tools tool - blowing your own mess into someone else's domain and making a racket while doing it

[carlo996]

Have we banned strimmers yet, I just want to know before firing the Stihl's up for a bit of garden and hedge work. Is that ok OP