Train horn attached to bicycle

[Video Link] This fellow attached a train horn -- powered by compressed air in a scuba tank -- to his bicycle.

Honk And I'll Kill You: Train Horn Attached To Bicycle

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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nixiebunny

At least *he* is wearing the necessary ear protection. Pity his poor victims.
- nixiebunny
  
  OK, I’ll have to admit that my bike is a bit on the loud side as well.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Piz7J-bQk
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Kudos!
  - LinkMan
    
    That reminds me I need to check out the film Made in Queens some time.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Reminds me, I need to get around to shooting a vid of the 500W system I put on Bikezilla…
- Navin_Johnson
  
  The guy jumping up and down seemed to be having fun.
Henry Pootel

Good thing he has that big horn and huge tank so he can warn people that he can’t control his bike really well because it’s got a big horn and a huge tank on it :)
bumblebeeeeeee

illegal in the UK, were it’s filmed.
- bumblebeeeeeee
  
  Law CUR reg 99
  - morcheeba
    
    Yep. Scuba tanks must be secured properly when the vehicle is in motion – £30 fine.
    
    http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Highwaycode/DG_070289
    - dragonfrog
      
      It looks pretty well secured to me – the frame is custom made for it.
xzzy

I’ve genuinely wanted to do that to my Yaris since I bought the thing. Toyota put a goofy “cute” horn on the thing and no one takes me seriously when I use it.

But a train horn? That’s about as close to a brown note as I think we’ll ever get.
- Sparg
  
  We have a redneck in town with a train horn on his truck. Funny thing is that this yahoo likes to talk all the time, too. Hey, Rodney!
- http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
  
  I too have considered fitting a dirty great fuck-off air horn to my tiny little car; it’s one of these.
http://www.facebook.com/HyperionToASatyr Jack Holmes

Good God, we can’t let this thing get to Portland.
- http://twitter.com/Sightlab75 Thom
  
  We already did…oh wait, I keep forgetting I live in Brooklyn, a.k.a. dirty Portland. And all the train horns are on tricked out Hondas, and they’re annoying as all get out (brooklyneers don’t have brakes, they have horns), but other than that yeah. Same thing.
  - Joshua Keroes
    
    Wouldn’t matter – Portlanders don’t use horns.
    - Anon_Mahna
      
      Horn broke, watch for finger?
millie fink

Cool beans for the war of cars vs. bikes. But for once, the video was too short.
- foobar
  
  As always, it’s really bikes vs. pedestrians, cars, public transit and everyone else.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Yeah, cause bikes are so obviously a menace to society…
    
    WTF.
    - foobar
      
      Yep.
      - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
        
        Oh gee. Cry me a river.
        
        That’s a perfectly understandable reaction to car-based insanity.
        
        I don’t see you decrying the epic carnage, massive environmental cost, waste of resources, and community-destroying dynamic of car reliance.
        
        But it’s cyclists who are the anti-social ones. Riiight.
- penguinchris
  
  It looks like he rode it down the street just one or two blocks and his friend with the video camera was trying to be discreet (not sure why considering the horn). They probably don’t have any more video and are too afraid/embarrassed to go out and do it again.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Z2PCUJLFNNZNVRIBXBER67IBTI petr

couldn’t he just use one of those little compressed air cans with the horn? The ones that people take to a game. Much smaller. Watching the teenagers cruise around on Georgia st. in Vancouver one late night, some guys rounded the corner with some kind of old Fire truck, equipped with a foghorn. THat got your attention. Moments later I overheard a cop telling them – where do I start, there is just so many things that are a problem here. They didn’t get very far.
- Nancy Reckard
  
  I put a air-compression horn on my bike using a bottle. I only use it when cars try to run my bicycle off the road.
- John Ridley
  
  Not really. You need a VOLUME of air to run those horns. You just can’t get enough volume through the tiny 1mm opening in a compressed air can to make those horns even vibrate. pressure alone won’t do it. Those horns probably go through the amount of air that’s in one of those little cans in less than a second.
  
  If you want a compressed air horn on a bike, there’s already a commercial product called the AirZound. It works pretty well but is useless in cold temps, it stops working around 32*F so I can’t use mine for several months out of the year. that’s why I’ve switched to a 12V car horn.
  - http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan
    
    They’re great when they work, but they kinda suck if you expect them to actually work at any given moment. I ended up throwing mine away a while back. I really should cobble together an electronic system of some sort, especially since I’m already turning a dynamo.
    - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
      
      Voice in command tone trumps most any horn for bikes I’ve ever seen.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KEXDNVTUU7PP6DLKLTQRHH2LDE TIMOTHY
  
  Those massive horns use an amazing volume of air to rip off a toot. One of those small cans would be good for one blast at best. Physics, who knew?
Hollando

you can get a much more manageable but still 115 dB horn for a lot cheaper.
Actually a useful thing, compared to this.
search for “airzound”
- salsaman
  
  I have one of those, it’s AWESOME. Avoid iffy situations when biking but it’s great to have the power to be heard if you haven’t been seen. It has saved me from getting hit by a bus and a few taxis, and it stopped a charging dog in its tracks once. A must-have safety device for any cyclist.
Surly Driver

thehornster.com. Not just hornster. Lesson learned.
Guest

When pedestrians complain about cyclists being dicks, they can now add this guy to the list.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  And they can add it via texting on their phone while they’re crossing the street against the red and wondering why they almost got hit by a bike or a car.
  - Guest
    
    Get hit by a bike or car while crossing the street without looking: your fault.
    Get hit by a bike or car while leaping off the path in terror because some idiot just sounded a train horn right behind you: not your fault.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      I hope that imaginary tragedy never happens to you.
      - Guest
        
        Although you did kind of make my point for me; it’s common to pick out the faults of a minority and extend them to the group as a whole, as you just did with pedestrians, and as the pedestrians who see this will do with cyclists.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        I don’t know. A guy died here a few decades back because an earthquake woke him up and he ran straight out a window.
      - http://boingboing.net/ The Life Of Bryan
        
        Was he wearing a helmet?
Manny

I have substantial hearing loss because I was next to a locomotive horn. Unexpected things cause drivers to make mistakes. He has very poor control over that bicycle. How has he not been hauled off the road as a serious danger?
Preston Sturges

There’s also no reason that scuba tank couldn’t be hooked up to something like a paintball gun delivering 1/2″ ball bearings at 1000 fps.
- acidrain69
  
  Most paintball guns fire in the range of 280 fps. I used to play at 300. I have no idea what kind of pressures would be involved to get a gun up to 1000fps, but it’s probably not safe, even if you aren’t on the receiving end of the barrel.
  - Preston Sturges
    
    A good starting point would be large automotive air tools…….
  - http://twitter.com/zaren Jim Schmidt
    
    Based on my very limited play experience, anything shooting over 300 fps gets you pulled off the field, as it’s not safe. I wouldn’t want to imagine shooting paintballs at 1000, let alone ball bearings. Something would likely blow long before you got to 1000, though.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KEXDNVTUU7PP6DLKLTQRHH2LDE TIMOTHY
    
    Perhaps you missed the part about “ball bearings” and not wimpy ass paint balls. If you’re launching ball bearings at 100o fps who is worried about safety? Sounds pretty effective to me! Where do I sign up?
- Ultan
  
  You can get .45 caliber 730fps airguns. Sam Yang of Korea makes them. (Single shot, though. 200grain/13gram bullets. 236ft-lb. = 321J muzzle energy, about 57% the energy of a .45 pistol round, with a gun that is 107cm long and weighs 3.3kg )
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000421787756 Steve Batschelet
  
  The FPS projected from something like a paintball marker has a lot of variable to say how fast it will travel. The size of the object, the amount of pressure pushing the bolt, the regulated pressure that marker can handle before it blows o-rings, etc.
  
  With that being said – a paintball marker typically operates at around 200 PSI internal pressure to the solenoid to achieve a velocity around 280 FPS. No standard paintball solenoid is going to allow you to raise the PSI high enough to achieve 1000 FPS. The solenoid would immediately start to leak as soon as the pressure got even close to 300 PSI – additionally the regulator of the marker would blow o-rings also. With this all said the highest PSI most paintball tanks reach with an HPA regulator is around 800 PSI output which is why the regulator is there to lower the operating pressure of the marker. The regulator will not allow you to turn the PSI high enough to allow all 800 PSI into the marker – I’d be surprised if you could even get to 350 PSI before the regulator would either shoot the regulator pin out the bottom and immediately leak all air out of the tank at a high rate or you would hit the C clip the keeps the pin from coming out but still not achieving the needed PSI.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

Trouble here is he’s just another douche that thinks horns are for -more- than indicating imminent danger or threat thereof, which is wrong. Horns are for indicating imminent danger or threat thereof alone.

They really aren’t for saying “Hi”, threatening pedestrians/bikes/other cars when your vehicle is stopped, expressing indignation, penis replacement or enhancement, joyful jubilation, frustration at your situation or another’s, courting women/men on the sidewalk or in other vehicles, or any of the other myriad uses that it may seem to have if you were to follow the examples above employed by many diverse turd whisperers.

I own a few custom rides, all of which are superior to that Goof’s ride, all of mine are superior in function whether it is bicycling or penis replacement/enhancement.
- CLamb
  
  Actually train horns, when used on trains, are used for much more than indicating imminent danger. You can find some of the signal codes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_horn .
- Ultan
  
  Famously translation from brochure of car’s rental firm in Tokyo:
  “When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.”
jwkrk

http://screaming-banshee.com/
139 dB airhorn I helped kickstart…
http://twitter.com/phimuskapsi Colin

Did anyone besides myself notice the “Me so horny” tag line on his bike frame. I chuckled. I think while it’s cool, it’s probably a good way to get arrested.
http://www.replicon.com/time-bill Project Tracking Software

Champ…Its good to see that he has the protection. But at the same time, I believe he failed to consider whats the decibels limit of an human ear at the closer limit…
dragonfrog

Whole lotta grumpy Gusses in this thread. The bike is awesome in its ridiculousness, and if you don’t think so you need a sensayuma transplant.
dragonfrog

Whole lotta grumpy Gusses in this thread. The bike is awesome in its ridiculousness, and if you don’t think so you need a sensayuma transplant.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000421787756 Steve Batschelet

I got a set of shocker 4 train horns on my Scion tC. They’re hidden under the back bumper and hooked up to a 200 PSI corsair compressor with a 5 gallon tank to for air. You get a very deep and ground shaking sound out of those horns and pretty impressive on how long you can keep the blast going. Amazing amount of fun but require a lot of responsibility to use properly.

1. Never use on old people.
2. Never use where there is a possibility to cause an accident.
3. Never use around animals.

I find the most fun place to use them is when rail road crossings are occurring. Its fun when all the cars are at a stop waiting for a train to slowly pass with the conductor outside of his window letting his horn go to signal he is passing. Then you slam your train horn and his head goes flailing in all directions looking for the train. After about 4 times he finally figures out its coming from a car and most the traffic gets a pretty good show and laugh.

The other good uses are when a fucking moron cuts across traffic infront of you and you teach him a lesson to look next time or it may just be a train that crushes him into small tiny little pieces.

I feel when used properly its a great tool for fun and teaching.