Bicycles with sick soundsystems

In today's NYT, a feature (with lots of great photos) about folks who build elaborate stereo soundsystems for their bicycles. It's not a new phenomenon, but it's neat to see it treated with such formal examination. Link, and pix here shot for the Times by Tyler Hicks. (thanks, Mark Hurst)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Your name is Stephen Lark, and you’d win more friends and influence more people if you didn’t come in loaded for bear.
Halloween Jack

I’m thinking that these guys want to have a bike shop give them better suspension in the back–look at how that rear wheel is flattening out. My butt hurts just looking at those wooden legs with the little wheels on them, not to mention the jolts to their electronics every time they go over a crack or pothole. Even rickshaw-type wheels would be better.
michaelportent

I’m sure the ability to blow out the neighbors’ windows with his kickin’ system outweighs the limitation of barely being able to pedal it down the road.
Gary61

Makes me wanna hum that 70′s song:

“Low … ride … er … goes a little slower …
the Low … ride … er don’t go too fast.”
Landowner

I guess I’m and old fogy but the only positive thing I see about these is that the chances of them being silence in a car accident are all the better.
Stephen Lark

Anyone, including Xeni Jardin and the above commenters, who is not utterly repulsed by the adoration of noise crime if not sonic terrorism by twits like this should have a read of this website. When you have done so then tell me whether this is REALLY sick.

None of you can hurt me.
None of you can scare me.
None of you can get me angry.

My name is Stephen Lark and I am a noise activist.
Eris Siva

All I keep thinking when I see this is, some mugger is going to be very happy.
pelrun

Happy until he tries to ride it away, that is :D
BenSeese

Last month, I got some ride-alongside footage of one of the two kickin’ sound systems at the Critical Mass ride in Chicago:
http://vimeo.com/359415
aribn

Very impressive! I also enjoy listening to music while riding, but was looking for something practical enough for a daily commute. I just finished writing a review of one excellent off-the-shelf system:

http://blog.greaterbayshell.com/2007/11/15/next-review-ihome-ih85b-ipod-speaker-for-bicycles/
lenore

Most of the bicycle sound systems I have worked with have been trailer-based (thus avoiding the need for additional suspension) usually with an ipod on the handlebars. I know of a couple of sound systems built on the xtracycle (fossil fool in SF with his soul-cycle is a good example) and some that simply hang off regular racks and baskets. The best of all are the old am radios built for bikes. None have been quite as powerful as those in the NYT article, but some of them are downright beautiful. And even a bare-bones stereo on a trailer is enough to make the party go.
Valiant

Over on this side of the pond there are quite a few, my three faves are:

Beatrix: http://www.bikeology.net
FireBrox: http://www.lfns.co.uk/bike.php
BassFreight: http://www.bassfreight.com

All of which seem to be slightly better thought out than our American cousins. While they look like great systems, they also seem very bulky, slow and a pain to maneuver.

PS- Beatrix is mine so I’m a bit biased.
Steve

@8 Lenore: Here’s a link to making a cooler radio for said trailer-based rigs: http://www.teambadmonkey.com/howto/cooler.php We’ve been pulling these behind bikes for several years now, might not be 150 dB like in TFA, but just about as loud as you need them to be.