After reading a lot about the hearing damage that can come from riding a motorcycle (especially from the wind noise that you get from highway driving), I started to wear ear plugs last year for my longer trips.
The make a huge difference! I can still hear traffic fine, although people talking at a gas station are hard to make out. I actually get home and feel less “mentally tired”. And once I got used to them if I forget to put them back in after a pitstop at Timmies the bike sounds really loud… irritating enough I’d usually pull over and put the plugs back in rather than put up with the racket the rest of the way home.
The downside is… …I think they make me ride faster. My little SV has a rather loud growl when it gets spun up (mostly due to the Hindle pipe) and to some extent I think my brain associates the engine and wind noise with speed… so I keep a good eye on the speedo. But with the plugs in I can find myself doing a seemingly “moderate” pace down a straight stretch only to realize the throttle is twisted almost as far as it can go. Or on onramps being 500 RPM shy of the rev limiter just getting up to speed with traffic instead of shifting much earlier (but it feels so _good_).
Thankfully my SV650S is considered a “beginners” bike, so it doesn’t go that fast to begin with, and my rear sprocket is up one tooth from stock which slows me down more. Still… something to be aware of as I try to work up to some longer rides this summer…