My 6 Favorite Cycling Accessories

January 27th, 2009 • Comments Cycling/Fitness, My Thoughts
Tags: accessories, Action Wipes, cycling, iPod Touch

-Photo by Andy Hay on Flickr.

Cycling is a great sport. Its a great workout, fun, social, and can take you to places you would never go otherwise. Another plus for a gadget-junkie like me, is that cycling is a very gadget conscious sport. Whether it be cyclometers, tools, bags, or any other type of accessories, the possibilities of cycling related products are practically endless. Below are some of my favorite, which I use almost every time I cycle. They've helped make my cycling this past summer and this winter even better than it would have been.

Portable DVD Player

-Photo by dno_1967 on Flickr.

Living in New England means I have to deal with long, cold, and harsh winters. This means no outdoor cycling. As a result, I switch to indoor cycling for the winter months. While I love riding road bikes, itjust isn't the same inside. Without the scenery, passing cars, houses, and wildlife, riding indoors can be pretty mundane. Thankfully, my portable DVD player helps me to get through indoor cycling with ease. It's nothing special, just a simple portable DVD player that works remarkably well for cycling entertainment. not only do I now watch more movies, but I cycle more because it is more fun.

I do wish my particular DVD player had a slightly larger screen, but even at 7″, it is still sufficient for my uses.

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Apple iPod Touch, the Ultimate Gadget for Excercise?

December 3rd, 2008 • Comments Cycling/Fitness, Review
Tags: Apple, cycling, iPod Touch, Review, technology, training

While many people view exercise as a dull, monotonous task, the truth is, that with the right entertainment, it can be quite fun. For most of my cycling and other work-outs, I listen to a 1st generation 8gb Apple iPod Touch. While riding my bike at the end of an 80 minute session on the rollers, I began thinking how perfect the iPod Touch is as an exercise tool.

Music

Good music can make or break a workout. The iPod is the perfect tool for providing you with great music for long, intense workouts. Current iPods have more than enough memory to hold sufficient music for days of exercise without replaying a song. My 8gb Touch model can hold 1,750 songs, more than I, and most other people, have in their entire music library. In addition, the playlist features in the newest versions on iTunes make designing a workout playlist easier than ever.

• Manual Playlists: Obviously the oldest and simplest form of playlist available in iTunes, they offer you the most control over which music occurs in your playlist. However, they require that you design the playlist ahead of time in iTunes (unless you use the On-The-Go feature).
• Smart Playlists: These are slightly more complex than manual playlists, but have been a part of iTunes for almost as long. Smart playlists allow you to set up a set of conditions that dictate which music will appear in your playlist. Because they can be based on play count, rating, last play date, etc., etc., the playlist is dynamic and changes every time you sync with iTunes.
• Genius Playlists: The newest type of playlist in iTunes, genius playlists are perhaps my favorite of the three choices. They allow you to choose a song in your library and it automatically designs a playlists with songs similar to that playlist. For exercise, I like to choose an intense, fast paced song, and then design a playlist around it.

The music features of the iPod Touch are its main feature, and its most used on mine, and many other devices. In addition, music is one of the biggest reasons why the iPod Touch may be the perfect gadget for exercise.

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