Brett’s fine Nick Cave article got me thinking about music and cycling. We spend lots of time alone on our bikes. The bike is on autopilot, it stays upright from second to second, freeing up our brains to consider anything or nothing. Music might be the only riding companion we have but it has to be the right music.
Being as Pro as possible is not necessarily a good thing. Pros tend to blow through all stop signs and they care not a damn about Rule #62. As adamant as I am about sock length and color, I’m more of a hardliner about Rule #62. It is one Rule I have positively never broken, honest Father. Half my friends do though, oh I see them with their wires and ear buds. I get it, I just don’t ever do it. I want to know what’s coming up the road behind me. I also like to hear the world as I ride but I really want to hear that dog or cement mixer before they are right HERE. And I sometimes enjoy the voices in my head. They get me.
Before you go for a long ride, preplan your music, don’t just turn on the car radio as you motor away to meet your riding friends. A moment of inattention and you could be riding three hours with The Carpenters. My wife and I have a pact when riding together. Neither is allowed to sing aloud whatever terrible jingle or 80’s anthem song is plaguing our brains. Sharing such things is not good for a marriage.
It is the early morning riding where my brain is most susceptible to contamination. Wrung out from a night’s sleep, my brain will absorb anything. I have to saturate my brain with good music before something terrible gets in there; once it is in there, it is not coming out without a fight. I had an early morning teeth cleaning and while captive in the chair, their office music programming played nothing but Cher for thirty minutes. Oh I thought it was amusing at the time. The next day, Cher was still there. I was not amused.
Predawn, rolling along in the truck, bike in the back, something great on the stereo, even if the windshield wipers are on, this is how we get up for a ride. There may only be one song in the head for the next three hours but at least if will be a good one.
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@Bossanove
Followed by a bit of CREAM? thats a great album.
I know it wasn't the direct topic of the article, but the caption on the photograph caught my attention. Please please can we not even consider 'Beats' to be an exception to Rule #62. As someone who is as passionate about audio as he is about Cycling, I feel compelled to point out that those cans are disgusting. Sure, they look sleek and sexy, but they sound like shit. Especially considering the price you pay for them.
In bicycle terms, it's like having £3000 to spend on a stunning new carbon bike, but opting for a £700 aluminium bike that looks like the former, but performs terribly by comparison, and still paying full price anyway. Alternatively, they're like the cocky guy in your group who dresses the part and talks the talk, but gets dropped on every climb as a result of neglecting The V. Kind of like that.
If I've misunderstood the caption, then fantastic. If not, I implore the Keepers to reconsider this gross mis-step.
I was with Gianni on this; never, ever rode with headphones... ever.
Well, until now. The only time I do it is when I'm riding solo on an outdoor velodrome/track we have locally and when no one else is on it. I also use bone conduction headphones so my ears still pick up any obvious noises around me.
The downside? My music player is my phone and I found that if I haven't turned the phone to 'airplane mode' then people call me, then I feel obligated to answer. That will ruin a ride every time and some friendships when you answer the phone saying "this better be fucking important, someone better be dead".
As for the actual contents of the article, hear hear. Acute awareness of one's surroundings must be some kind of requisite for finding one's V-Locus, no? In effect, it's like compiling a playlist for your ride, only instead of a media player of some sort, one has one's brain.
@Lazarus Thrift
I chose the photo for its simplicity, no thought for the crap cans. Almost everyone uses earbuds of some sort for warmup, not those things. I'm glad to hear they suck, as it helps my argument that most people listen to shiet music these days. So they might as well use crap headphones too.
Rule #62 is one that I ignore almost always. I never where them with a group (that's just bad manners), but the rest of the time, I always have the iPod loaded up with playlists to match what I have in mind for that ride. You wanna know why I do this? Because if I don't, I end up with a shitty song fragment that I don't know the lyrics to on a constant loop in my brain, that somehow matches the rhythm of my stroke. Ruins the whole experience.
Give me all the arguments you want about being dangerous and whatever, it's a risk I'm willing to take.
Song 2 is the ultimate. It kicks ass, is not embarrassing and will never sound dated.
Having said that I have a very catholic selection of tunes on my Cycling playlist. I keep a fairly constant number of about 150 songs and rotate off the most-played so it stays fresh, apart from a few classics.
A selection of stuff:
Indie (Blur, Green Day, Black Keys, Killers, Lemonheads, Ty Segall)
Rap/Hip Hop (Kevin Gates, Macklemore, Run-DMC, Missy Elliot, MIA, Snoop Dogg)
Classic Rock (Rolling Stones, REM, Squeeze, Oasis, Led Zeppelin)
Punk (The Buzzcocks, The Clash, Talking Heads, The Adverts, Blondie)
Electronic (Fatboy Slim, Kid Cudi, Moby, Tune Yards)
And other random stuff - John Lee Hooker, Paul Simon, INXS, Hunters and Collectors, Crowded House, Soup Dragons, Specials, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Johnny Cash, Nancy Sinatra, Ralph Stanley, The Saints, Dusty Springfield, Cee Lo Green... )
I like to be surprised !
As for wearing earbuds, I do it all the time in Dubai where we have very little interaction with the traffic. Mostly we're on a hard shoulder or the side of the road and if someone is going to collect me at 140km/h then hearing them a milli-second earlier won't do much.
In the UK I never wear them because even in country lanes there is always a need to hear a car around a blind corner or hidden by a hedgerow, and you're constantly changing lanes, going around parked cars and so on.
Never in groups though.
@razmaspaz
I seem to remember last year dropping this bad boy in Franks ears and eyes pre-Tour, he did not like it, but if this post is morphing very much on to the topic of ear-worms and this has to be the Queen worm of them all...
Iggy Pop does however make a fantastic race pace track to replay in your brain and I guess images from Dutch Corner can only help!
The phrase "come on" is one I fend myself thinking or saying all the time, either at work, at home or on the bike.
My favorite band: