I never listen to music when riding. It would isolate me from the riding experience: the sounds of falling conkers and beechnuts, the squirrels, the woodpeckers, the thrum of a swan’s wings, the chelping of a skein of geese, the rustling of the pines, the harsh squawk of a rising pheasant, the “yaffle” of a woodpecker, the drone of a microlight crawling slowly overhead, the crunch of the leaves under my tyre - and of course the approach of other trail users.
Sometimes, I sing quietly to myself if I’m trying to memorise a song or to “own” a tune I’ve been practising.
Here’s something I got a while back to keep my mp3 player safe when being active: http://www.yotank.com/zentank.html
There are also some for iPods. I find it really quite effective and a real eye-catcher.
Currently I don’t listen to music while riding my Uni, simply because of safety issues. Because I still consider myself somewhat of a beginner, I want to know what is going on around me. I want to hear any cars or anything else that may present a safety concern. Perhaps when I feel I am better skilled to deal with a lot then I would.
Riding my “bike” or in the gym on the other hand, I always use a MP3 player. Usually playing something quite heavy like Edge of Sanity, Amon Amarth, Six Feet Under, Hypocrisy, Vader, The Project Hate, Novembers Doom.
i listen to the radio but my mum bought me an ipod for christmas so sonn i will listen to anything out of my 16gig music collection
probably frenzal rhomb
I wouldn’t listen to music if sharing the road with traffic to much can go wrong unexpectedly and I want every advantage I have.
I actually got hit by a truck about an hour and a half ago (in my truck) the roads were slippery, he slid through a red light and I could not stop either. He had a snow plow on the front of his truck which ripped a two foot gash through his hood, I hate to think what it would have done to a unicyclist.
If I would not have seen him coming he would have hit me square in the driver door but I slowed down enough that he only hit the front corner but the truck is totaled anyway. Maybe if I was paying even more attention I could have avoided the accident completely.
i guess what I am saying is limit your distractions and be careful out there!
When riding on trails I listen to a variety of music from classical to skaw to metal.
I think that background music helps greatly on my muni rides to get me more focused on riding. Too much goes through my head when not listening to music and I get distracted. However, the music (for me at least) needs to be something heavy to keep up the mood, but also something without lyrics that I feel compelled to sing along with. If I’m listening to anything I know, I get distracted by the music consuming too much of my concentration. And anything that I listen to enough, I’ll begin to learn. So, I believe that the best music is death/black metal. Hard, fast, melodic, lyrics to help pump, but lyrics that I’ll NEVER learn to sing along with. Trance would be great too, but it’s a little too soft and usually without lyrics doesn’t keep the pump up enough. Techno would be good, except that it’s a little too strong, and makes me feel jittery instead of relaxed and pumped.
btw, Amon Amarth is on my list too. I didn’t know much about any of the death/black metal bands, so I just wiki’d them, looked them up on youtube, if they sounded good, I got them…
Hey, and if a threadjack wouldn’t upset too many people, I had a question I’ve been wondering lately. I have a Sprint Upstage phone, that has a great music/video player built in. I’ve never owned an mp3 player before, so I may not be qualified to answer my own question. I would like to know how many people have a phone that can play music, but still use an mp3 player, and why?
I’ve seen TFK five times. Trev (lead vocals) has signed a pair of my pants three times and the rest of the band signed it twice on separate occasions. Trev is awesome to talk to.
I usually listen to songs I, or friends of mine, make. (Fruity Loops music studio.)
I have a playlist on my ipod entitled Uni Music.
It helps tons if I put the headphone wires under my clothing, leading up to my ears, that way the wire doesn’t interfere or get caught on anything when I ride.
I only really listen to music when I am unicycling to destinations, rather than just learning tricks. I really should start listening to music when I learn tricks though, because my friends pointed out that when I ride, I make a “shhh” type sound, in the note played in the song that is in my head at the time. Its kinda weird, but it gets me out of breath easily, and would save me air to just have the music experience first hand .
yeah. my freestyle is kinda different than you would think though… its kind of like almost flatland, but not exactly lol. I do stuff like stand up glide to 180 uni-spin out and stuff like that and that is an amazing song to ride to with the more jumpety aspect of freestyle. If you ride that style of freestyle, old skool rap is just unbeatable.
Well for quite some time i had given up riding with music as i had been riding with one or 2 others so didnt see the point… The other day i went out and decided to put the ipod on…
I now HATE riding with my ipod - it felt wierd and also the headphone cord was annoying.
In conclusion i dont think i will ever go back to riding with headphones in!
The only think I find annoying about riding with music is the headphone cord too. I usually put it under my shirt, but even then, teh cord sometimes goes over the handle and I sometime pull the earplugs out of my ears while doing an innocent hop. I have those noise reducing ones with the interchangable sizes, I’ve lost a couple pieces for it when that happens. Now I try to tuck the wire in more and usually just listen one one earplug.
i go with vintage disco, 80’s dance/club, synthopop. Uptempo stuff. I like to start up with The B-52’s Planet Claire. Someone mentioned rapper’s delight; Blondie’s Rapture (the man from mars is eatin’ cars) is excellent too.
I find music helps me keep a steadier cadence, particularly when i’m really heated up and going fast. It also helps me take my mind off how uncomfortable i sometimes find myself and definitely improves my [high speed] performance and endurance.
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