slo_rida

I never listen to music but I do listen to podcasts via a Bluetooth earpiece in my right ear.

I've used a few different models. The older jawbone era was the best, but I'm currently using a cheap $15 one from Amazon.

bulevardi

Don't listen music while riding.... but I have the music in my head already.


A good pedaling rythm is Mexican Grand Prix of Mogwai
start humming already

sexy cyclist

Yup. I use a bluetooth speaker, the outdoor tech buckshot.

I try to keep the volume low or off when I'm around people that can hear it. If I'm downtown near large groups of pedestrians or riding through a neighborhood late at night I'm not going to blast my tunes.

That and I keep in mind the roads I'm on and my ability to sense traffic. I don't crank it on twisting roads full of blind corners, for example.

All that being said I tend to alternate between two types of music.

First is the fast paced, motivating music. Usually some sort of jungle mix from RaggaJungle.biz | Ragga Jungle Music | News | Mixes | Releases | Labels | Producer

Next is the slower music, which is more varied. Anything from blues (Robert belfour), folk (Jack rose, six organs of admittance) to slow reggae mixes like this:

mplsbiker

I may be alone here, but I find speakers on bikes to be one of the most annoying things I encounter. You listen to your music... Don't make everyone listen to it. Put in some headphones.

Redhatter

Having the music through a speaker I find is helpful when on footpaths. It works much like a bell, they can hear the music coming, only you don't have to keep ringing it. I don't have it obnoxiously loud, I accept not everybody shares my tastes (although I've had people in/on adjacent vehicles bopping along to it) and in traffic, I'm mindful of ensuring I can still hear the vehicles around me (that said, I do have mirrors), but on the footpath, I feel having the music going does make things marginally safer for pedestrians.

I've started doing it lately… originally using a Bose SoundLink Mini bluetooth speaker, which has very good sound reproduction… but then I figured that if I got caught in a storm or whatever, that speaker unit is built like a bomb: not designed to be taken apart. I already lost a $600 amateur hand-held radio that way (Yaesu VX8-DR; a submersible no less) and one mobile phone (ZTE T81).

Thus there was a good chance it'd get waterlogged some day and be unrecoverable, it's a nice set, be a shame to destroy it.

Therefore, I dug out an old amplified speaker system that I built about 15 years ago, based on a Dick Smith amplifier kit. I needed some mods as the basic speaker seemed to be picking up 105.3MHz off Mt. Coot-tha (never a good thing, they play only chart music and the charts have been rubbish since 1995), 100pF capacitance on each input fixed that, and the set has worked well. Not as high fidelity, but the circuit is simple, thus maintainable.

Key thing though, is that I have the set powered via a cigarette lighter plug that has an integral power switch. You do NOT want to be fiddling with a media player in traffic! If you want to change tracks, better to cut the power then wait until you're in a safe spot before fiddling. If a song comes on that I don't like or I need to switch off in a hurry for whatever reason, I just bang that switch and the music is cut immediately, I don't need to take my eyes off the road or go groping around for a small button.

spokenfour

Guffaws , Guffaws. I love watching the guys that freestyle give the correctness nazis a hard time, me being a freestyler myself, albeit a closet one. ( I tell my wife that I wear my helmet,secretly shucking it when im out of sight.)When i was commuting to work, I would listen to pipes and drums almost exclusively. It helped with my cadence,alerted people to my coming in the morning dark and I think made me look just crazy enough so that people would leave me alone. Either that or they were plotting my death,never found out.

sexy cyclist

Seems pretty selfish to suggest people take a more dangerous approach to enjoying their ride for your safe. Do you get annoyed at engine noises too?

I do think its a ****** move to blast music around groups of people within earshot, like cruising downtown on a nice summer afternoon. But if I'm out on a pretty secluded road and a cyclist happens to be coming the other way, I'm not going to go out of my way to avoid them having to listen to my music for 5 seconds. There's bigger fish to fry.

jaydubu

Well said.

To answer the OP, I use a buckshot 2.0 Bluetooth speaker.
I've been observing this post now for a couple months. I commute in to work, 2 to 3 days a week and do a 20 to 30 miler usually on the weekend. I am 59 years old and I have yet to hear a cyclist blasting music where it was offensive. Maybe a car but not a cyclist. Some ride with a speaker and are out of ear shot within 30 seconds usually. I live in No. Calif. and I am fortunate to be able to ride in the Lake Tahoe area, San Francisco and along the coast. I hear peoples music all of the time. I've never heard a cyclist "blasting" music. I think if some of the cyclists are that offended by a little music on a passing by bicycle, maybe consider moving to an area where there are a lot fewer people. Those darn people anyway with their cars that our louder than your hybrid, and kids walking on your lawn and loud motorcycles, and there smoke or the smell of their back yard BBQ's or their kids making too much noise while swimming in their backyard pools. Lighten up Snowflakes. Don't be so uptight. Have a bourbon and a good cigar and relax. Or if it makes you feel better, go buy yourself a trophy and have a cup of hot cocoa. I'm more offended by people responding to "thank You" with "no problem" instead of Your Welcome. Though I probably won't be able to realize the satisfaction, I can only hope that maybe one day I will be smoking my cigar where it is legal to do so, and listening to my music at a level that is also legal, and it offends you to the point that you voice you displeasure to which I would reply "your welcome" or something that I wouldn't necessarily type on this thread out of respect to the forum and those on it. But I think you know what it would be.

sexy cyclist

Funny thing is the only people I've heard complain about bike speakers are other cyclists on message boards.

Other cyclists in person have asked me about mine because they wanted one. One cyclist happened to have one too, same model I was using (Buckshot version 1).

I've had people at red lights roll down their windows and ask me how I'm playing music on my bike. They think its novel, something they hadn't seen before.

I've had co-workers ask me if they could borrow it at work, or if I could use it to play some tunes while we finish up our shift.

Never had an issue with it in face to face interactions.

mplsbiker

Now which situation do you think I am referring to? In addition I have had many occasions where a cyclist with a speaker simply cannot hear a "On your left", and I have had to resort to near yelling to get their attention. And yes engine noises annoy me, motorcycles are the worst IMO.

hurtmypony

I use an Outdoor Tech Buckshot Bluetooth Speaker paired to my phone as mentioned by others earlier in the thread.

Like most speaker-users here mention, I don't want to ruin anyone else's outing with my deplorable taste in music, even though it is generally rare to encounter other cyclists and peds on my regular routes at the times I travel them.

I do see some though, so I affixed one of these to my headset cap with Velcro:

12M Bluetooth Multi-Media Remote Controll For ISO Bluetooth 3.0 Android OS 4.0 | eBay

That little button allows me to more quickly pause the music when encountering others. Should I spy approaching foot or cycle traffic, I immediately and always punch the center pause button (accessible with even my gloves on, though I use thin ones with Bar Mitts) to avoid potential discourtesy.

As a plus, it permits more convenient access to Rewind and Fast Forward. I Velcroed it because I do not believe it is naturally water-resistant - in poor weather I peel it off and toss it into my tube top bag.

Should I ever travel a heavily populated route where I'd continually encounter others, I'd simply keep the speaker off.

BassNotBass

Since I ride in traffic the last thing I want to do is impede any of my senses. Besides, I'm a musician with an extensive musical library inside my head to choose from and if I want to change from Billie Holiday to Bassnectar I can do so with a mere thought.

jaydubu

Oh, and what about those damn elevators with their piped in musak. Here I am just trying to get up to a certain floor and bamm,,, all of a sudden this music is playing and I cant' concentrate on what I was doing. It's hellish. Or your at a baseball game, enjoying americas past time in the gathering of other like minded individuals and just like that, someone starts playing the organ.
If you can't concentrate on riding your bicycle with a little music, you might just need to think about staying indoors where it is safe.
I drank out of a garden hose, rode in a back of a pickup truck, and made home made ramps to jump by stingray all without a helmet. Yeah,,,,,,,,I'm a rebel.

DiabloScott

Exactly - I just want to make enough noise so I'm not constantly ringing my bell. A lot of people on the MUP don't know how to respond to a bell and it's a judgement how far behind them you ring it - but they hear the music coming and they understand and they aren't surprised when I pass them - safely and courteously.

I've been playing my cell phone on speaker, but I just bought a handlebar speaker that plays off an SD card so I don't have to pair up a bluetooth connection - just turn it on and go.

bulevardi

A good reason for me to finally buy some loud annoying speakers.

Leebo

Ok, but what? Death metal, Van Halen, classic blues, Stevie Ray, I gots to know. U2, beastie boys, R&B, country? Yikes.

mplsbiker

I don't think anyone said concentration or safety was a problem... Everyone on the pro-speaker side has been making this some kind of safety argument, not me i just simply shared something that annoys me a bit.

But I am sure for a truck bed riding, non-helmet wearing stud like you you have no problem wearing headphones and riding.

mplsbiker

Sounds rad.

jaydubu

Man buns annoy me a bit but not to the point that I care what someone else does. It's your life, you should be able to choose to live it the way you want to.
And no, under certain circumstances, I don't have a problem wearing headphones.
And I don't consider myself a stud, but I'm not some fearful participation trophy, time out, give me my space Snowflake either.
oh, and one more thing, I think that if you go back and review this thread, you will find several references to distraction and safety due to the music.
Now go have some cookies and milk and take a nap. You are getting cranky.

mplsbiker

I will be mailing your participation trophy first thing in the morning. I heard you say earlier that you commute 2 times a week and even sometimes do 20 miles on the weekend in sunny California. All of that biking... I don't know how you find the time to sprinkle in your libertarian views on internet web forums.

jaydubu

Easy, I can multitask. you know, like riding a bike and listening to music at the same time.
Oh, and you can keep your participation trophy. You might want to continue to look at them and admire your old "use to be's".
Are you Annoyed?
And I am pretty much the farthest thing from a Libertarian.

mplsbiker

Not really you're just a funny guy. Since you are coming from the first extended adolescence, coddled generation who decided to take the whole thing a step further with their own kids (Gen X +) and actually created the culture of participation trophies, mandatory helmet laws, banning smoking everywhere, and starting the war on drugs (Or wait do you believe a bunch of 5-15 year olds created that stuff?)... You seem to have a lot of misdirected anger. But Alas youth, I don't have to look at 'used to be's' because I still have a long life ahead of me.

fietsbob

Back pack carry my musical instrument on my Bike, play for a couple hours, then ride home.

linberl

I like my plantronics backbeat fit earbuds, they do not block ambient sound at all. I keep the volume low enough that I can hear everything when I ride as well as my tunes as background music. I also listen to the baseball games when I ride. With the backbeats, I can still hear tires rolling, engines idling, etc. Electric cars are more problematic, but that's an issue for me as a pedestrian as well.
I really do NOT like it when cyclists blast their music on speakers, it's annoying. I really dislike it when I'm out on weekends and there are families with little kids and some rider is blasting some song with cuss words on the bike path. Speakers are fine if you keep the volume where it doesn't intrude on everyone else in your path.

PatrickGSR94

I've been using the Buckshot speaker for awhile, but have found that it's super flaky with regards to phone connection. Seems like even the slightest solid object in between line-of-sight between the phone and the speaker cause it to drop connection. That means that I cannot have the speaker on my handlebar and phone in a jersey pocket, which is where I always carry my phone on my commute. On my upright utility bike or gravel bike, I'm more often wearing pants/shorts with front/side pockets, and I can carry my phone there and it will work fine with the speaker on the bars. But in a back jersey pocket, it just doesn't work at all.

It sucks because that's what I was hoping to avoid when I purchased the Buckshot speaker. I have to stick the speaker in the top mesh part of my trunk bag in order for it to work, and even then I guess the curvature of my hindquarters blocks the signal, and the sound seems to be coming from my butt.