During the first ride bringing the new BA home I noticed a whine that most here blew off as me 'whining'... turned out to be a badly cut gear requiring replacement of several gears and shafts in the transmission. The noise sounded like the change from riding on smooth pavement to riding on grooved, so much so that I'd look around to see what happened. It was only in 4th gear (didn't have a tach at the time). The mechanic working on it knew it was something wrong. Also had a bad noise that got worse with rpm, that turned out to be one of the wire loops that hold the cables above the headlight shell. The loop would vibrate off the shell and make a heck of a racket. All it took was bending it up a bit. But both noises were noticeable even to those riding with me.
So everything is not always 'normal' or engine related. Sometimes it takes someone else riding your machine to give you a second opinion to identify something as a valid concern or not.
