Zard Exhausts - Exclusive Exhausts For Exclusive Motorcycles

If there’s one thing we’re good at here in Hurtle Gear, besides offering a huge range of specialty motorcycle hardware, we also identify and secure niche products. Zard Exhausts are one such product. Zard are the Italian shoes of the motorcycle world, hand-made from top quality materials, they are specialised, unique and, quite simply, very attractive. Aside from physical beauty, there is another major attraction to a Zard system and, at the risk of stating the obvious, it’s the sound.

The sound of a motorcycle should be enjoyed by the rider, preferably without annoying other road users - or your neighbours. I used to be one of those riders with an obnoxiously loud motorcycle. My neighbour was in his eighties and mentioned more than once that my bike was a bit loud. In the interests of good neighbourly relations, if it was a bit early, say before 7.00am, I would push the bike down an alleyway and start it up once I’d reached a safe distance from home. That bike has gone, replaced instead by less raucous machines but, my Harley is a bit on the loud side so it’s still not uncommon for me to push the heavy monster down the alley prior to a start up.

We have a shiny Zard exhaust on the shelves here at Hurtle that would look and sound amazing on my Harley. It would also peel a couple kilos off the porcine 320 kg Sport Glide, but we would rather see it on a customer's bike.

Zard has over thirty years of development during which time they have mastered the delicate art of function over fashion. The result is stunning pieces that will allow your machine to breath and sound like it should without getting on your neighbours’ nerves. Each component of a Zard system is hand-made in Italy out of stainless steel, titanium and carbon fibre. Whilst, titanium
and carbon are products of the modern age, I have a particular fondness for stainless steel. Stainless adds a purposeful quality to your motorcycle without the over-bright glitz of chrome plating.

The more mature readers will likely remember when Staintune was the ‘go to’ in’ after-market exhausts in Australia. Staintune was an Australian motorcycle exhaust manufacturer who turned out top quality systems made out of, as the name suggests, stainless steel. They cost a king’s ransome but some of us would willingly set aside two or three weeks wages to be able to purchase a pair of shiny, stainless mufflers whenever we secured a new motorcycle. If you kept the sheen up, they actually added value to your motorcycle when it came time to sell.

If, for one reason or another, you’re not out riding your motorcycle, there’s nothing quite so zen as whiling away time in the shed returning a mirror finish to alloy and stainless. Staintune has gone out of business but Zard is alive and well. Best of all, a pair of stainless mufflers will now only costs me 1.75 weeks of work.