Does music make you train better?

Short answer: yes. Listening to music while on my indoor trainer helps keep my mind off the pain, or helps pass the time during long indoor rides when I might otherwise get bored and quit early.

I don't get the same boredom on outdoor rides, so music doesn't help as much there. There's also the issue of whether it's safe to wear earplugs on outdoor rides, which is highly dependent on the conditions of your ride.

I think it will make your long rides much more enjoyable. Two suggestions. Record your music in one of the higher quality formats such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) rather than MP3. MP3 is fine is space is a consideration, but today's digital media players have enough storage capacity that you can use the higher quality formats and still put hundreds of songs on your player. WMA is CD-quality. Second, invest in a quality pair of headphones such as the Shure E2 or the Etymotic Research ER 6i. The headphones that come with most digital media players are pretty lousy. If you can find an audio store with the two mentioned above, go in and listen to your favorite tune with the headphones that came with your digital media player vs. these. You'll be amazed at the difference in sound.

JTE83 said:

Does music make you train better? Like wouldn't it be inspiring to listen to your favorite music on an MP3 player while training? Would it make you feel better and make you bike faster? Or is it such a distraction that you would be prone to crashes more often?

I'm thinking about getting an MP3 player and training with music.

I don't know of any research that states whether music would make one train better or not. My guess is it would depend on the individual.

If you are going to get an MP3 player and listen to it while riding, be sure you do so on a fairly closed course for safety reasons. I'm going to get one also. I've been using an outdated cassette player and keeping it in my handlebar bag during the rides I do at a local park where traffic isn't much of an issue.

I'm considering the iRiver iFP-890T 256MB player. It plays MP3, WMA and Ogg Vorbis, works with a single AA battery, has FM radio and a USB 2 connection. It's a little larger than some of the other newer models but it's still fairly small. Also, I have a ton of rechargable AA batteries and the newer models almost all use AAA.

Also, be sure to secure your headphones somehow. I was at the park Thursday doing a 50 miler and reached up to scratch my nose and knocked the ear buds right out and didn't catch them in time. The front spokes chewed off one of the ear buds so it's time for a replacement. That happened within the first 30 minutes but I still managed to set a new personal best.

RapDaddyo said:

I think it will make your long rides much more enjoyable. Two suggestions. Record your music in one of the higher quality formats such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) rather than MP3. MP3 is fine is space is a consideration, but today's digital media players have enough storage capacity that you can use the higher quality formats and still put hundreds of songs on your player. WMA is CD-quality.

I don't use WMA because of Microsofts digital rights BS. Besides, I already have everything in MP3 format on my hard drives and don't want to take the time to re-rip everything.

If you have newsgroup access, check out alt.binaries.mp3.sounds, alt.binaries.mp3.sounds.complete_cd and alt.binaries.mp3.sounds.full_albums

RapDaddyo said:

I think it will make your long rides much more enjoyable. Two suggestions. Record your music in one of the higher quality formats such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) rather than MP3. MP3 is fine is space is a consideration, but today's digital media players have enough storage capacity that you can use the higher quality formats and still put hundreds of songs on your player. WMA is CD-quality.

Not to be a pedant, but WMA isn't CD-quality. It's just a different sub-band encoder with MS extensions.

FLAC is lossless (CD-quality): http://flac.sf.net/ But FLAC only gets you about a 2:1 compression ratio compared to MP3s 7-10:1. the Rio Karma will play FLAC files natively.

RapDaddyo said:

Second, invest in a quality pair of headphones such as the Shure E2 or the Etymotic Research ER 6i. The headphones that come with most digital media players are pretty lousy. If you can find an audio store with the two mentioned above, go in and listen to your favorite tune with the headphones that came with your digital media player vs. these. You'll be amazed at the difference in sound.

I have a pair of Shure E2Cs and yes, they are amazing. They blow my mind. However, they really block outside noise, so it's a little scary using them as a pedestrian -- I wouldn't even consider using them on my bike. Not to mention that they would get very nasty with the sweat. Buy a pair, just use something open-air for riding (if anything)

Oh, and as far as music goes, everyone on here should check out Kraftwerk's album Tour De France. It's great workout music. Also, Electro Noveau (various artists). And yes, I think music helps me train better.

regards,

I ride with music on country roads and it helps keep my cadence high. As long as I keep it quiet I can still hear cars coming. Im not under the dilusion that I could dodge a car that wanted to hit me even without headphones. I use the apple ipod shuffle. small and it works and with so few buttons not very distracting.

As I've said before, what I think DOES make us train better is adrenalin. Try getting in a competitive group ride or a race, and see how hard you can push yourself. 🙂

I put my ipod in my left jersey pocket, with the wire going under the jersey and out of the neck hole, so it doesn't get caught on anything.

spacelord said:

I put my ipod in my left jersey pocket, with the wire going under the jersey and out of the neck hole, so it doesn't get caught on anything.

yeah i have an ipod shuffle that i keep in one of my back jersey pockets, it weighs almost nothing and can hold a nice amount of songs.

and yes, i feel that a good will make you go a little harder without even realizing.

I always carry my iPod with me when I ride. I listen to music when I ride solo or when I ride with my buddies. It usually takes my mind off of the fact that my quads and hamstrings are burning when I intervals. 🙂

That's exactly what I do. I like using music while I train (coldplay mostly) because it helps keep my mind focused on my cycling without getting to over analytical. Sometimes I think too much and then get discouraged, or distracted and slow down. Music helps push me that little extra. I stick a headphone in my right ear so I can hear cars and other people coming from the left side. I could honestly care left about sound quality, but for details sake, I use an ipod.

spacelord said:

I put my ipod in my left jersey pocket, with the wire going under the jersey and out of the neck hole, so it doesn't get caught on anything.

spacelord said:

I put my ipod in my left jersey pocket, with the wire going under the jersey and out of the neck hole, so it doesn't get caught on anything.

Good idea, I must try that as the cable hanging loose is messy and does seem to catch on things. Music definately helps.

I have a Samsung 20 Gig and with every bit of music I own on it I still have about 9 Gig left to store photos, computer files etc. Great for travelling. You don't have to decide which albums you want in advance and I believe I can download photos directly from my digital camera (although I haven't tried this yet to see if it actually works) The sound and colour screen for viewing photos are great but the operating software sucks.

These and the Ipods of similar size are only $US200 - 250 in the States (where I bought mine) so I wouldn't even consider the smaller sizes such as 250 meg now. The same things in Australia cost about $au600.

I bought my girlfriend a 1.5 gig TEAC a while back and it has much better operating software and good sound. Both play multiple formats (WMA, MP3 etc.)