To reiterate: It’s summer, and time to get outside. My favorite way to get outside in the summer is pedaling — be it mountain biking, road biking, touring, cross biking, or my new favorite, bike camping.
On the last ride I took with my friends across the way, we were hitting some back dirt roads near the office here in Waitsfield on a great sunny day, and my friend asked, “you bringing tunes?” I’ve always debated this, whether skiing or biking, because I enjoy listening to music, but feel it takes away from the social aspect. I was there to ride with some friends and hang out, so if I jammed some ear-buds in, that goes away.
So what to do? Throw a speaker on your bike! I don’t mean bungee-tying a boom box to the rack on the back of your bike; speaker companies are either making specific speakers for bikes or bike mounts for the speaker you already use. Outdoor Tech specifically makes a speaker for this — the Buckshot — which includes the bike mount. As it turned out, my Turtle Shell could also be mounted via the Turtle Claw, and the new Beats Pill 2.0 via the Pill Bike Mount.
I’ve told you about the Turtle Shell before, so I’ll spare you how awesome I think that is. So onto the Buckshot, a small Bluetooth-enabled single speaker design in the same durable construction that the Turtle Shell has. Its bike mount is simple — just strap the speaker on your handlebars, frame, seat post, or any metal bar.
Looking forward, I may want to rock on the chairlift come winter (sorry, too early I know), so the Turtle Claw would be great for that, too. It attaches to the standard camera thread on the Turtle Shell, but will also work with anything else with standard camera thread, like your camera, or action camera (like the iON Air 3). It will clamp on any pipe under a 1.5-inch diameter so most bikes, and lots of other stuff.
Then there’s the ever-so-awesome and great-sounding Beats Pill, for when you really want to make a scene on the bike path this summer. The Beats Pill 2.0 is great, with a four-speaker design, NFC or Bluetooth connectivity, and pairing options to connect to another Pill (so you can really make some noise). This summer, they brought on the bike mount so you can hit the bike path in style. The best part it that it acts as a backup battery. As your phone starts to drain, you can plug in and charge up, even if you’re nowhere near a power source.
Lastly, besides how great it is to have tunes while out riding, it’s also a lot safer than having headphones on while riding around. As always, grab your tunes, grab your bike and get out there and enjoy the sun!
