In cycling as in many other sports music is a key motivator. It gets us going, it helps wring that last watt out after a long effort, or it just puts a smile on our face during a rainy ride. The problem is though that while working out in the gym or going for a run you can to a certain extent be blissfully unaware of your surroundings, cyclists are not afforded that luxury. We have to contend with distracted motorists, amongst various other hazards, leading to a difficult choice: listen to the music you love and risk your safety, or ride without music, and have to put up with the sound of a poorly maintained drivetrain?
What if I told you there is a third option?
Safety through bone conduction technology
Your brain primarily hears sound when your eardrum vibrates. This is usually achieved by transmitting rapid changes in air pressure along the ear canal, as in standard headphones. It is possible however to bypass the ear canal entirely by conducting sound along the bones surrounding the ear canal.
By utilising bone conduction, Shokz headphones allow you to listen to the music or the audiobook you love without obstructing the ear canal, therefore allowing you to remain totally connected to your surroundings. You can listen to your favourite albums and still hear cars, other cyclists, pedestrians, and that creaky bottom bracket that you’ve been meaning to service for a month now.
Two pods hook over the ear and press on the bony area at the very top of your cheekbones, vibrating those instead of the air in your ears, and delivering premium sound via a wireless package. While the primary benefit for us cyclists is clearly safety, there are some other benefits too over standard in-ear offerings.
Open-ear Comfort
If you regularly cycle with headphones in you’re going to have those long rides where, after a while, things start to get uncomfortable. Even the most comfortable headphones involved sticking something into a space that, from an evolutionary standpoint, was never designed to be a receptacle.
With Shokz though there is nothing sitting in your ear canal for hours on end, and therefore a huge reduction in discomfort, particularly on longer rides. What’s more, given the super lightweight nature of the design the noticeable load on…
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