Whilst I'm continuing my quest to be a leaner, fitter bod, I am doing about 20-25 miles per evening of road, but biking on your tod can be a bit lonesome . So wife suggested playing some decent music whilst out biking. Sounds a brill idea, but what is the best peice of kit to use. some music is really good for motivating ones will power etc. lightweight, small and a comfy fit. Also what is the best way of getting my favorite heavy rock, etc on to said device. Or anyone else up for some decent m/biking at present.
How many songs Battery life Durability Software Accessories
MP3 players come in 2 formats really, solid state whereby the music is stoed in a chip, so no moving parts, advantages of this are they are possibly more robust and the battery life will be longer, also the physical size should be smaller (chewing gum packet size), the downside is that there is a limited capacity and not many functions on the player, no playlists etc. Hard disk based players can store a hell of a lot more music and some have extensive features, the downside of these are moving parts, shorter battery life and slightly bigger in size.
Apples Ipod I guess is the daddy as far as design and features, but that does come at a price. I've got a mini mainly for snowboarding and they're now available in 6Gb size so probably upto around 2000 songs but iTunes (the software that sits on the PC) is great and you can create various types of playlists (Rock, Pop, new songs, new songs which haven't been played more than 5 times and have a rating of 5 etc etc)
It's small, light and the battery life on the latest models is quoted at 18 hours, and the range of accessories is huge in comparison to all of the others, car kits, wireless transmitters, hi-fi integration etc etc
I was originally going for the 1GB iRiver 799 (?) but have now upped it a bit to 5GB which are still light (under 100g) and fairly cheap. Looking at Creative Zen Micro (£129), iRiver H10 (£150) or Olympus m:robe 100 (£144 and sexy as hell).
I've got original 1st gen ipod, 4th gen 40 gig ipod and 1 gig shuffle (hence I get the Gizmo nickname), The latest 3/4th gen and photo models are really good for features and accessories, have large capacity and can be used as portable hard disks, downside is price. The shuffle is great for its size, fact it doesn't get damaged and can be used as a USB drive, downside is lack of controls but I quite like that now, I just stick a random selection of music on and let it shuffle them, saves me thinking about what I'm going to listen to.
I use the shuffle a lot when travelling, just cos its easy to put in a pocket. its handy at the gym as well as you can wear it around your neck. An ipod is a big bigger and needs a carrying case.
well then, just been out and tried some of these little wonders, ended up buying an 6Gb blue ipod mini with leather holder and charger. software is excellent and easy, ipod mini is brilliant. thanks for your help peeps.
like mentioned above, great stuff, but watch out when riding with music. I do about 40 km twice a week and anywhere from 30 to 80 km on weekends on both road and MTB. I have become very attuned to noises from the rear as they warn me of overtaking cars, bikes and other bikers. You really need to think of safety here as a bicycle is so vulnerable to idiots! Enjoy! Great fitness device
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