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[1sweet66]

I know we all consider our bikes "silent" but both my bike and my wife's bike make some sounds. I'm not sure if it's because there is no engine noise or there is something unusual on our bikes, but I'm able to hear a lot more of what's happening than I'd be able to hear on a conventional bike. We've both had problems with wheel bearings creaking, brake pads rubbing, etc.

Zero has been great to replace bad bearings / wheels but we haven't brought up the other sounds thinking these were normal for every bike - you just can't usually hear them on a combustion bike.

What are you guys hearing on your bikes, and how loud of a noise is it? What is normal and what isn't?

[dkw12002]

My 2011 S makes several sounds: 1) a thunking sound from the front suspension going over potholes, bumps in the road. 2) a sound from the wind going through the spokes that sounds something like a tuning fork. 3) a slight rubbing sound from the disc brakes against the discs. 4)Mine has a high speed cooling fan for the motor, so I can hear that occasionally when I am stopped and there is no traffic around. 5) Occasional voices around me at stop lights explaining "It's electric."

[ColoPaul]

Yeah, the Zero is too quiet. 
  Brake pads rubbing is a good one.  Pushing my Honda VF1100C with the engine off I hear the slight scrape of the brakes.  Of course, on the Zero, the engine is always "off", so you hear that all the time in the <5 mph range.
  My 2012ZFS motor makes all kinds of sounds in the 0-5 mph range.  A few subtle clicks, a gentle whine, a whirring.   In the 5-30 range, it's mostly just a whirring noise.  Above 30 there's too much wind sounds to hear the bike.

  I really like taking off from a stop - it sounds like a amusement park ride! 

[manlytom]

no sounds with my 2011S - its great. great to hear the revs going up in the motor - sounds like a jet engine in terms of pitch increasing but muuuchhh quieter.
found though that I hear what seems the front brake pads when cornering on occasions !!?? not in a straight line. first thought its the brushes in the Agni motor.

[CliC]

2012 DS here. Just off the line, the motor's whine (which then is relatively low-pitched) excites a resonance in some of the bodywork somewhere, making it louder and buzzier, but that quickly fades as speed increases. I also hear a faint, speed-dependent periodic light scraping noise which I assume to be brake pads rubbing, but I'm not sure. Rear disc sometimes still squeals, but I improved that greatly by cleaning the disc with alcohol, so I'll probably try that again. Other than that, just knobby howl and wind noise, and all the sounds around me.

The bike is so quiet that I've worried about odd noises I've heard while on it, only to stop, remove my helmet, and discover it was a car in the other lane, a nearby bird or, in one case, a hitchhiking insect

[rotoiti]

My bike emits loud whine at freeway speeds (70+). Wonder if something's wrong with it...

[craigq]

My XU's rear suspension has a bit of noise when the rider's weight settles on the bike. There's a little bit of a whine from the motor during acceleration, and quite a bit on deceleration (especially in "eco" mode with the regen active). There is substantially more wind noise than bike noise.

[CliC]

My bike emits loud whine at freeway speeds (70+). Wonder if something's wrong with it...

At 60+ mph, the noise from the knobbies on my DS gets pretty close in pitch to the motor's pitch, and they reinforce each other to the point I can hear them clearly amid the wind noise. At least I think that's what's happening. [EDIT: not exactly, see below.] I'll have to do some more listening, maybe wear my 3/4 helmet instead of my full-face once, to verify.

UPDATE: rode some today with a stout tailwind, so I was able to hear the other noises better. The motor whine quickly gets too high in pitch to be any more than barely audible, particularly over normal wind noise. The two tones I referred to earlier are actually the two tires; they each have differently-pitched knobby howls.

So, in order of precedence at 60+, the noises are wind, knobby howl front and knobby howl rear, some brake pad rubbing (distant third), and motor noise (even more distant fourth). Makes me wonder what the S, with its pure street tires, sounds like, as I don't recall from my test rides.

At lower speeds, the wind and knobby howl quiet down, and the motor whine is lower in pitch, so it's more prevalent. I also have something metal buzzing slightly at certain low speeds, so I need to hunt that down. 

[Lipo423]

The kind of noises I get in my ZF9 are brake pads/disks (which is normal), the induction motor as you start to take off (which is normal), and motor's internal fan (which is also normal).
Other than that, I also hear the front fork sometimes doing a kind of "clock" -which, I believe is not normal...

That is one of the problems of riding an electric bike as a lot of "noises" are covered up by the engine noise in an IC bike.

[rotoiti]

My bike emits loud whine at freeway speeds (70+). Wonder if something's wrong with it...

The two tones I referred to earlier are actually the two tires; they each have differently-pitched knobby howls.

Indeed, the sound I am hearing is the knobby howl. I rode my DS to San Francisco yesterday for the Golden Gate Anniversary fireworks. Going back I took I-280 out of SF and the howl was barely noticeable until I crossed over to 101 where it became pronounced as usual. Different surfaces, same speed, different sounds -- must be the tires.

[Richard230]

Besides wind noise, all I ever hear is a nice whine from my motor and the usual "thunking" when the suspension hits a bump or pothole. None of those noises bother me anymore.   

[oobflyer]

I recorded this when I first brought my bike home from the dealership. I sent it to Zero because I was wondering if the sounds were normal (I guess I expected complete silence). They replied right away reassuring me that the sounds were indeed completely normal.

[CliC]

That's the "motor growl", what I speculate is the controller trying to do what the throttle is commanding when the bike is moving ("disobeying") due to some external force. Pushing the bike forward or backward at anything more than a snail's trot will elicit it. On occasion, the motor's position sensor will get into a certain spot and you will hear it even when the bike is not moving.