Music on the go

[dailuggs]

how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu lot sort the problem out?

 

[2LAP]

Originally posted by dailuggs
how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously , a cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu lot sort the problem out?

I have used a few different players, as a simple guide...

CD player when riding the road it doesn't jump too much. Heavy on power.

Radios are great as they are small, don't use too much power and don't jump.

MP3 players are good too, but the Ipod is a bit expensive but has loads of storage (>8mb). Mp3 players don't jump/skip. Light on power.

Currently using a minidisk player. Doesn't jump when riding on the road, quality of playbak is good and has remote controls. Build in rechargable battery.

 

[pineapple]

Originally posted by 2LAP
I have used a few different players, as a simple guide...

CD player when riding the road it doesn't jump too much. Heavy on power.

Radios are great as they are small, don't use too much power and don't jump.

MP3 players are good too, but the Ipod is a bit expensive but has loads of storage (>8mb). Mp3 players don't jump/skip. Light on power.

Currently using a minidisk player. Doesn't jump when riding on the road, quality of playbak is good and has remote controls. Build in rechargable battery.

Do you find the music distracting (eg cant hear traffic around you, or lose concentration when a good song comes on...)??

I've refrained from listening to music on my bike until now, cos I always thought it would distract me.

 

[waffle]

mini-disk walkmans are a good product - long (rechargeable) battery time, up to 5hrs of music per disc (assuming you have an MD play with the 4x record/play function), remote control, which is important when your on a bike, no disc jumping, and light and compact. Of course, i think you have to use your discretion as to when you listen to music when riding, that is, is it safe to do say. I live in sydney, australia where its generally probably not safe to do so.

 

[Call Me Bob]

On 25 Nov 2003 06:40:13 +1050, dailuggs <[email protected]> wrote:

>how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously , a
>cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an
>ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu
>lot sort the problem out?

I currently use a Minidisc player, one of the Sony NetMD models. It's pretty good for music on the
bike, and on the go anywhere really. Very long battery life, absolutely jog-proof so no jittery
music, lightweight, small and it seems pretty rugged. The bundled headphones are junk though.

If you're considering an iPod then I guess you use mp3's? The NetMD players will connect to your pc
and allow you to download mp3 files to minidisc via usb, this is pretty fast but not true pc data
type transfer speeds. A considerable downside to this is that the file needs to be converted to
ATRAC format first, which increases the time needed and also can clutter your harddrive if you elect
to keep the file for future use so you don't have to repeat the conversion again. You can get about
3 albums of music on one minidisc at reasonable "portable" quality.

Sony's software to manage this process is bloody awful, it's slow, resource hungry and it crashes
all the time. It also places rights management type restrictions on what you can and can't do but
there are good alternatives available so this needn't be an issue.

All in all I'm pretty impressed with minidisc for on bike music and with certain reservations I'd
recommend one.

But..

Them iPods look soooo funky! )

I'm having an internal battle with myself at the moment but know I'm going to succumb sooner or
later and buy one.

I'm not sure what it is about the iPod that you think might not be suitable for a 2 or 3 hour ride?
The buffer that you mention will probably just be used to stream music from memory, so that the
disc isn't constantly reading while you are moving. I expect this saves battery usage and also
protects the disc.

The new iPod comes in 10, 20 and 40GB flavours, which means they'll carry enough music to last all
the rides you could make in the next decade or so )

Battery life is quoted as 8 hours, but that's the figure from Apple, I don't know what real world
performance might be.

My only worry is whether they are robust enough for use in activities like cycling....

They seem like a fabulous solution for mobile music though.
--

"Bob"

Email address is spamtrapped. To reply directly remove the beverage.

 

[Simonb]

dailuggs wrote:
> how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously ,
> a cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an
> ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu
> lot sort the problem out?
>
>
>
>> --------------------------<
> Posted via cyclingforums.com http://www.cyclingforums.com

get an ipod.

You will not regret it. Never skips. ever

 

[Mseries]

I sing

 

[Msa]

"dailuggs" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously ,
> a cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an
> ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu
> lot sort the problem out?
>
>
>
> --
> >--------------------------<
> Posted via cyclingforums.com http://www.cyclingforums.com

Easy, I don't listen to music. Too distracting, I'd rather listen to my lungs! Guess if I was
poncing around on a mountain bike things may be different

--
Mark

"Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak"

 

[Mark Thompson]

> how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously ,
> a cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an
> ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu
> lot sort the problem out?

I listen to the radio, or cycle behind MSeries.

 

[cigarman]

On 24-Nov-2003, dailuggs <[email protected]> wrote:

> how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding

I have an Orange SPV mobile phone, it has a slot with 256mb compact flash card in it. I can get
enough MP3s on the card for most of my journeys. My headphones only have 1 earpiece so I can listen
to music "left eared" and traffic "right eared"

--
replace deadspam with btinternet to reply Tom Anderson Leighton Buzzard England

 

[Joss]

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 06:40:13 +1050, dailuggs wrote:

> how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously ,
> a cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an
> ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu
> lot sort the problem out?

I'll second the iPod idea. I blew a large chunk out of my budget getting the 30gb model and haven't
regretted it once. Works under linux (if that's a consideration) and can store your entire
collection (unless you're _reallly_ a collector). Doesn't ever skip, can store everything you've
got and the battery life is pretty much as advertised. Certainly enough for me to bike into uni
(about 3 miles), listen to it all day (yes, 9-5. I'm a PhD student), and bike home with ample
battery life to spare.

The only problem you might run into is that I believe it's now illegal in the UK to make mp3 copies
of a cd that you own, if that worries you. So legally, you'd have to buy all your mp3s from iTunes
or some equivalent. Like I really really have.

Apart from that, I couldn't rate them higher. Except it has crashed once, but took about 5 seconds
to reset, so wasn't that much of a problem. Totally, seriously and thoroughly recommended.

Oh, the 8mb buffer you're referring to is just for caching the mp3s from the internal disc, so it's
just the equivalent of the anti-skip feature of a CD player. The disk will comfortably store
thousands of hours of music, so unless you're REALLY ambitious, I think it will last most rides.

GET ONE!

Joss

 

[Nick Miles]

Mark Thompson wrote:
>>how do you guys manage to listen to music while riding (not too load to distract me obviously ,
>>a cd player even with asp is ****, a tape wont last long enough so im thinking about going for an
>>ipod but i notice its only got an 8mb buffer so would that be enough for a 2-3 hour ride? how dyu
>>lot sort the problem out?
>
>
> I listen to the radio, or cycle behind MSeries.
>
>

The 8mb buffer, is just that, a buffer. The iPod has around10-40Gb of storage space on there and can
quite happily play continuously for hours on end. If I've got my ums correct, then 10Gb is about 160
huors of continuous music. Of course you need some fairly good quality batteries to last that long.

;o)

N

 

[Tony Raven]

Simonb wrote:
>
> get an ipod.
>
> You will not regret it. Never skips. ever

Seconded or thirded or whatever. When you get it though junk the software it comes with and get
EphPod http://www.ephpod.com/ and Exact Audio Copy http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ with a LAME encoder
http://lame.sourceforge.net/ - all freeware and creates immeasurably better sound quality mpegs than
the Apple software. Instructions to put it all together are at
http://www.ping.be/satcp/tutorials.htm

Tony

 

[Arthur Clune]

joss <[email protected]> wrote:

: The only problem you might run into is that I believe it's now illegal in the UK to make mp3
: copies of a cd that you own, if that worries you.

This is untrue as far as I know, though I welcome a correction.

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org "Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

 

[Dave Larrington]

MSeries wrote, succinctly:

> I sing

One very wet day somewhere in northern France I kept myself sane by singing everything I could think
of in the style of Bob Dylan[1]. It certainly frightened the natives.

1 - loudly, through the nose and somewhat out of key

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
===========================================================
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
===========================================================

 

[Mseries]

Dave Larrington wrote:

> One very wet day somewhere in northern France I kept myself sane by singing everything I could
> think of in the style of Bob Dylan[1]. It certainly frightened the natives.

It all started when on tour in New Zealand (the diaries are being written up so watch this space). I
had been cycling alone for several weeks and visited the Canterbury Show which is a large
agricultural show with cows & tractors. There was a beer tent with a German (style) Umpah Band and
song sheets encouraging one to join in. I retained the song sheet and at 12:30 every day replaced my
map in my bar bag with the song sheet and sang for 30 minutes. My favourite and the one that started
it all was 500 Miles by The Proclaimers, yes, I started it when I clocked up 500 miles from
somewhere. Another popular one was Living On a Prayer by Bon Jovi because of the words " oo-oo I'm
halfway there-ere, oo-oo living on a prayer".

A silly half hour does wonders when cycling alone for long periods, the solitude is rewarding but
does change a person after a while !!!

>
> 1 - loudly, through the nose and somewhat out of key
>

thats de rigeur,

--
The Reply & From email addresses are checked rarely.

 

[Peter Clinch]

Dave Larrington wrote:
>
> One very wet day somewhere in northern France I kept myself sane by singing everything I could
> think of in the style of Bob Dylan[1].

OT: did you hear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue last week, with Graham Garden singing "How Much is That
Doggy in the Window to the tune of Blowin' in the Wind in a Bob Stylee? Amazing stuff, and even
included a harmonica break! :-D

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK net [email protected]
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

 

[Stephen \]

Peter Clinch wrote:
> Dave Larrington wrote:
>>
>> One very wet day somewhere in northern France I kept myself sane by singing everything I could
>> think of in the style of Bob Dylan[1].
>
> OT: did you hear I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue last week, with Graham Garden singing "How Much is
> That Doggy in the Window to the tune of Blowin' in the Wind in a Bob Stylee? Amazing stuff, and
> even included a harmonica break! :-D
>
Yes it was very good.

 

[Simonb]

joss wrote:

> Works under linux (if that's a consideration)

Do you have a link?

 

[Ambrose Nankive]

In news:[email protected], Arthur Clune <[email protected]> typed:
> joss <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> The only problem you might run into is that I believe it's now illegal in the UK to make mp3
>> copies of a cd that you own, if that worries you.
>
> This is untrue as far as I know, though I welcome a correction.

My reading of the (contents page of) the currently applicable copyright act*
(1988) gives section 17 as the relevant version: (paraphrased)

Infringement by copying: ... copying a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work means
reproducing it in any material form (including electronic means)

So my reading is that it's not allowed. I'm fairly sure the definition of copy is just 'copy' and
not 'copy and give to someone else'.

In fact I'm planning to write to Sony and ask if I could have their permission to copy some Bob
Dylan onto my (Sony) phone (which has an MP3 player on it) so I could play it there, and seeing what
they say. May take a while to get round to it, of course. Especially as it'll mean reading the act
carefully.

A

*available at http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm