Bike Intercoms
 

I was asked about this in another thread and thought I would start a new topic instead of wandering through the other thread. I invite others to add their bike intercom experiences to the thread. It is probably time to update the intercom discussion anyways :beer:

We have been using the Terrano-X (used to be Cardo BK) intercom for a while now. Mostly successfully.

Rather than ear buds, the Terrano uses a small speaker that attaches to the bike helmet and floats off the ear (actually the whole intercom mounts to the helmet). The thinking is this allows the rider to still hear other noises. In my experience, this is actually true so long as you do not turn up the volume too high. The human ear tends to hear only the loudest noises and filters out anything below the threshold so turning it up raises the threshold and thus blocks out environment noise. Sometimes this may be a good thing. An added benefit is with nothing in/on the ear these things are comfortable for hours.

The system uses multiple microphones and noise cancelling so audio quality is pretty good without notable wind noise. Yeah you still hear wind but not from the mic/speakers.

For the captain I describe the intercom as the Voice of God. Apart from the stoker/God deal, since the stoker is talking towards you there is a surround sound of voice *and* intercom. The intercom is probably even more effective for the stoker since the captain typically is talking away from the stoker.

Battery life is pretty good and we can ride all day on a full charge.

I also use the Terrano on my half bike during my commute ride. In this application it pairs with my iPhone using BlueTooth and plays music or can answer phone calls. Yes you can ride and talk on the phone at the same time hands free. On our last ride my intercom picked up a new trick: after a long period of intercom silence it activated the BT music. Any talk loud enough to break through swapped it back to intercom mode. My stoker wondered why I got so quiet :D I had always wondered if it would do this but this was the first time it actually did. I may have to go read the manual again to see how I did this?

Range is decent and makes for an interesting rest stop as you hear everything the other person is saying... or doing :lol: We did push the limits on Honeyrun at the Chico Wildflower with me riding and the stoker walking and have found that line of sight is generally a good indicator.

So that is the good... sometimes we have been frustrated with the pairing. The intercom is supposed to pair with up to 3 other units (for a 4 way conversation). And when paired things work pretty well. Where we run into problems is switching modes between solo rider music player and tandem rider intercom. Or I think sometimes it shuts the intercom down if there has not been any talk for too long. There are controls for this but...

The controls all work through 5 buttons on the unit and there are a lot of different things controlled by those buttons (volume up/down, intercom A/B/C/D select, intercom pairing, BT pairing, MP3 player controls, BT phone, power on/off). So you really need to know which button to push when to get it to do what you want. Sometimes it is a push and release and others a push and hold. There is definitely a learning curve here and they should include a pocket reference card. They do provide audio feedback on button pushes and there are different LED flashes and colors but again you need a decoder to understand it all (not to mention you cannot see the LEDs anyways when the helmet is on your head).

Overall we are happy with the purchase and would recommend this intercom with the caveat about sometimes hard to use.

They seem to run frequent sales... so look for the price to drop in a sale before making the tandem two intercom commitment.

[QUOTE=vrooom3440;19191296]I was asked about this in another thread and thought I would start a new topic instead of wandering through the other thread. I invite others to add their bike intercom experiences to the thread. It is probably time to update the intercom discussion anyways :beer:

Thinking it was my question (without wandering through the other thread to verify), thanks for the info! I'll have to look into this.

When we need to, the captain/stoker just talks louder!
We can understand why some folks need a *talk* system; after over a quarter million miles of riding TWOgether, we see no need (yet) for another gadget.
Pedal on!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

I hear you Rudy... but what if you want to share something snarky to your stoker about another bike rider? You might not want to have to yell something like that :roflmao2:

Although my stoker could probably do without the belch-com :D

Thanks for the review.
I've been thinking about getting some of these as i'm as deaf as a post and these may help

We love our Cardo BK-1, same as the Terrano-X. I can use it on our triple with my 2 sons, as well as with my wife who would be riding on her single. Of course, we use it on our double tandem when we go out together.

I've found it is also nice when on singles and not needing to yell to communicate. It kills me when I see people riding 2 abreast so they can carry on a conversation when cars are whizzing by at 55 MPH with what I feel is not enough room. With the intercoms, you can still converse while riding in a safer configuration.

Checked with Terrano to find out if their device could be paired via blue tooth directly to my wife's hearing aids. Their initial response was no. I've asked if there is a technical issue or if it is a marketing decision (I mean, they want to sell two not one). Thinking that maybe they've never been asked before and maybe never really tried, the easy answer is just to say no. Doesn't hurt to push a little.