tunes while ya ride....
 

a bit off topic but does anyone use any music devices for those long rides?? ie: ipod or mini disk etc..
was looking at getting something but wanted to find out what the go is, whats good n stuff... was thinking ipod but i dunno if its worth the money. any opinions?

Here we go again!!!

This has been discussed several times.

Always a topic of much debate!

But, my position is that I ride to get "away" from all of the noise and distractions. I like to get into the woods to enjoy the woods. The sound, the smell, the everything else. Just NOT the music.

To each his own though.

I've become too dependent on my ears for hearing bikers coming around blind bends or coming up behind me too often. Also, my ears help me know if my bike is about to do something that is bad. I don't have a negative view on those who listen to music while they ride, until they are oblivious to me on the trail. :)

Riding for pleasure - no music
Commuting in crap weather - tiny portable radio with one earphone (kerbside) to cheer me up a bit

I likve to hear the bike...I used to listen to music but I always feel deadend to my bike. Hearing it is part of the feeling of it...

like a couple of the guys said... I like to hear the bike, as well as get away from everything.. when i ride thats the last thing i want to do. Also helps if you leave you cellphone off so people dont bother you in the middle of a ride. Gotta have one incase ya break a bone in the middle of the woods though :)

i ride with headphones on a low volume, i use a discman, but it really is a pain in the ass once it starts to skip a lot or all together stops, depending on how hard you hit a bump or jump while going. so i'd say get an ipod, i'm gonna get one soon, or even one of the other cheaper mp3 players, at least it won't skip.

I ride sometimes with a rio sport mp3 player, they are very durable and are only 90$ for 128 megabytes which is like 30 songs at 128 bit rate and at 64 bitrate it is 60 songs, the lower the bit rate, the lower the sound quality. Also, I recomen buying rechargeable batteryes for the thing it eats alkalines faster than nimh.

riding with any sort of music is simply dangerous and deadebs your reactions to the rest of the world

*deadens

very true yet again...

i have an ipod, i MIGHT try ridding with it on a low volume, but i think i will end up singing the words to the song more then riding :/

I got a couple of my friends into mtbing recently, they both had ipods, and brought them with them on our first few rides together. They were constantly yanking the headphones out of their ears and saying "What?" whenever I tried to say something to them (for example, "look out ahead!" , heh). They eventualy figured out it was too much trouble and basicaly just a pain in the ass and stopped bringing the ipods with them. Of course they didn't listen to me when I told them that right off the bat. :rolleyes:

Road riding = sure
Any kind of mtbing (dh, urban, XC) = wouldnt risk it

Road riding = scary to me. I'd want to hear any honking horns or be able to hear a car approaching or whatever.


In general to me, headphones + bike riding = pain!

Thats why you stay aware, you can always have a good view when your road riding.

Been hit on the road three times. None were my fault. None could have been avoided. All three were the driver's fault.

Too many "near misses"!

Twice had a car pass me, then turn right, immediately in front of me. With no blinker, no indication, and no room to stop.

Had another come out from a blind driveway from my right.

Regardless of how aware you are, you can't control other people and their actions. Regardless of how defensively you drive, you've got too many idiots out there. Hamstringing yourself with headphones and thus blocking out one of your senses just doesn't make sense to me.

Same thing off road. I listen for other riders, indications of trail conditions...etc. I like to be "fully" aware of my surroundings.

However, to each his own. You want to ride with headphones on. That's your perrogative.

Same goes with people I know who ride Stoned. Not for me!

I don't ride with music because I go through branches. Branches = rip your ear phones off. Also, you can't hear other bikers as well and cause trail rage. :rolleyes:

Just sing your favorite songs out loud. It'll improve your breathing and will warn others of your approach!

sorry for bringing up an old topic, but as im new its good to get everyones opinion. i dont think wise to use on road riding or teknical track riding like you all mention but i'll be using it as a "fitness motivator" when riding sealed cycle tracks round the city (all one way so its kinda safe) to build up the stamina.. it was more of a technical question regarding the products but hey...
ipods the go i think :)

i only use my ipod on my morning commute to work and then to classes. It is only about a mile and a half. I was almost knocked off my bike yesterday by......believe it or not. A CITY WORKER! No blinker just turned right in front of me. He was sitting at a stop sign, and I was cruising up to it - saw he had no blinker....he started to pull forward, I pulled up even with him and he jerked over and then slammed on his brakes...I just sort of balanced and glared at him and then slowly started up again. I wanted to crack his hood with my krypto lock....

anywho - prolly would have happened headphones or not...but I NEVER ride offroad with headphones...it really doesn't make a lot of sense.

Every once in a while I ride by myself. Usually I ride with a friend or two so rarely do I listen to music. Refuse to go off the road by myself...

Use a solid state (memory based) device. A 128Mb player can hold a good 2 hours of music at a decent quality and isnt very expensive. The more memory the device has the more expensive it will be but it will hold more music. Ive used a 128Mb player on a few 15 mile rides and didnt get anywhere close to running out of music. Also battery usage in solid state devices is lower than non-solid state devices. Solid state devices are generally much much smaller.

Hard drive based devices are more likely to be damaged. A bump/jump could jolt the head and scratch the platter resulting in a failed drive. Hard drive based players are often more expensive and larger in size. Upside is you get more music capacity.

CD based devices have a tendancy to skip. Even though most say they have a 30sec skip protection on them I have yet to see one that actually does not skip. In my experiences this means the song skips about 30sec after your bump. CD based devices would be in the middle on power consumption and in most cases largest in size.

If your looking for something both solid state and hard drive based, check out the Neuros II. Its a solid-state device that comes with a jacket which you can slip on and contains a hard drive for more capacity. Lots of real cool features on it (radio transmitter, recorder, etc.). And if this means anything to you...your geeky like me...and it prolly excites you. The firmware is opensource! :p

I need to hear what the bike is doing, so no music for me.

Its hard for me to make a desision.

1. I concentrate better not listening to music.

2. Music helps me get through longer rides, and i have good music i would listen to that would keep my going.

Lately i havn't had a device to listen to but i will try it agian to see what i think.

I had an old cheap tape player with a radio hanging on my belt, where I could listen to NPR radio station (classical music, world news, or other educational topics), so I kind of liked that while riding, but unfortunately the played fell of my belt too many times untill it finally developed a noise problem...

I love music it's great. I bike so much around the trails around my house that the sounds aren't too important anymore. For me it's always been about the challenge and the view (which is very nice here btw). If it's a busy a day i'll pop out one headphone so i can hear any riders coming up/downhill but other than that i find i can crank much harder with tunes since i can't hear my breathing and when i want to just zone out i can easily do that.