I was disappointed, but not really surprised, to discover my Bose noise-cancelling earbuds are not up to the task of providing a musical soundtrack for my normal mode of “get-me-to-Colorado-ASAP” cross-country travel.
My initial tests, tooling around local backroads, had seemed promising. And out on the highway, the buds can deal with the noise – at speeds below 70, anyway – as long they only need to counteract the relatively consistent roar and turbulence generated by my own passage through the atmosphere.
Today I was unfortunately unable to launch onto northbound I-75 while rocking out to the Joe Satriani track I’d loaded for that specific moment. I’d deleted the first autofill of my Going to California (With An Achin’ In My Butt) playlist to my ancient iPod Shuffle, because it had been done with the “randomize” setting on. But the second autofill, despite appearances to the contrary on my desktop app, apparently suffered the same flaw; nothing was in order. After stepping though several tracks I decided Flying North by Thomas Dolby was close enough to what I needed.
I instantly realized the iPod’s volume was too low; although the noise cancellation was doing a decent job of damping the wind roar, I often found it impossible even identify the intro of many songs.
But there was no safe way to adjust the volume while riding, so I put up with it until the first gas stop in Grand Rapids. The ride itself was very pleasant; traffic on I-69 and I-96 was light and fast, temps in the low 60s, the sky blue with high thin clouds.
After fueling I kicked up the volume a couple clicks. Traffic through G.R. was often moving at frankly quite unreasonably high speeds; I had no choice, in the interests of safety, but to follow suit. Therese and I danced our way out of town to a song from Joe’s Garage whose title, let alone lyrics, is not suitable for mixed audiences.
The ride south on I-196 remained pleasantly cool and smooth, and I could enjoy the music…more or less. But all too soon I merged with I-94 where the traffic, and especially truck traffic, increased manifold. That’s when it became clear that the noise cancellation simply can’t deal with the chaotic vortices of all that other traffic.
I’d liken the audio experience at that point to listening to a poorly-pressed and subsequently warped record on a low-quality phonograph. My soundtrack for running the gauntlet around the bottom of the lake was full of wow and flutter and distortion, pops and crackles and hiss. Really quite intolerable.
At least the gauntlet itself wasn’t bad. For those who’ve not had the misfortune of travelling the confluence of highways that converge and coalesce near Gary, Indiana, just south of the Lake Michigan shoreline, consider yourself blessed. A massive amount of traffic, much of it trucks, funnels through a sixty mile stretch which seems to always be under construction, yet is always in terrible condition. Despite the desperate need for volume, multiple lanes are invariably closed (often for no apparent reason). It’s the single worst part of the trip between my house and my dad’s place in Colorado, and I’ve been known to take 100-mile detours to avoid it.
I’d stopped in Michigan City prior to running the gauntlet. I didn’t really need gas at that point, but unless I topped up there I’d be obliged to hunt for fuel somewhere in the Chicagoland mess. Stopping just before the gauntlet also provides an opportunity rest and freshen up a bit, all the better to deal with the rolling disaster ahead. I also check traffic and if the gauntlet is red I’ll bypass it by routes such as US-12 which might take longer, but at least keep me moving.
But this day the lines were all green, and indeed most of the time traffic did move fast -- sometimes a lot faster than it should have been given the construction zones and generally constrained arteries. There was inevitably a slowdown at one point; but I never had to come to complete stop, though I was in serious Slow Race mode for a short stretch due to the inexplicable activities of some flasherized vehicle.
Of course, I did have to come to a complete stop at the accursed tollbooth, something else I’ve been known to drive miles out of my way to avoid.
By now the temperature was in the mid-80s, far warmer than is my preference for riding weather but dead-on to the forecast I’d been watching for the past couple days. At the next gas stop, in Geneseo, Illinois, I spent a fair amount of time peeled down to my shorts and t-shirt, stretched out in a shady patch of grass, watching a pair of wind turbines spin in the steady southerly crosswind.
I checked the weather ahead – nothing to see. I checked the traffic ahead: glad I zoomed in to see the slowdown on I-80, which was fortunately bypassable by taking I-280 around Davenport. I made sure all my vents were wide open and got back on the road.
The rest of the day wasn’t notable, aside from the continued plastering of bug splats that I would normally expect to be reduced this time of year. Today’s ride across the plain looked like summer (there wasn’t any color to speak of), felt like summer, had all the bugs of summer…but didn’t really smell like summer. The new normal, I suspect, though I also suspect it won't be long until it's the new normal for November, too.
I rode a bit farther into the twilight than I normally would (or should), just because the temperature finally dropped and it was nice to no longer be staring into the setting sun.
And there was also the spectacular lightning show inside that gigantic thunderstorm off to the north.
My initial tests, tooling around local backroads, had seemed promising. And out on the highway, the buds can deal with the noise – at speeds below 70, anyway – as long they only need to counteract the relatively consistent roar and turbulence generated by my own passage through the atmosphere.
Today I was unfortunately unable to launch onto northbound I-75 while rocking out to the Joe Satriani track I’d loaded for that specific moment. I’d deleted the first autofill of my Going to California (With An Achin’ In My Butt) playlist to my ancient iPod Shuffle, because it had been done with the “randomize” setting on. But the second autofill, despite appearances to the contrary on my desktop app, apparently suffered the same flaw; nothing was in order. After stepping though several tracks I decided Flying North by Thomas Dolby was close enough to what I needed.
I instantly realized the iPod’s volume was too low; although the noise cancellation was doing a decent job of damping the wind roar, I often found it impossible even identify the intro of many songs.
But there was no safe way to adjust the volume while riding, so I put up with it until the first gas stop in Grand Rapids. The ride itself was very pleasant; traffic on I-69 and I-96 was light and fast, temps in the low 60s, the sky blue with high thin clouds.
After fueling I kicked up the volume a couple clicks. Traffic through G.R. was often moving at frankly quite unreasonably high speeds; I had no choice, in the interests of safety, but to follow suit. Therese and I danced our way out of town to a song from Joe’s Garage whose title, let alone lyrics, is not suitable for mixed audiences.
The ride south on I-196 remained pleasantly cool and smooth, and I could enjoy the music…more or less. But all too soon I merged with I-94 where the traffic, and especially truck traffic, increased manifold. That’s when it became clear that the noise cancellation simply can’t deal with the chaotic vortices of all that other traffic.
I’d liken the audio experience at that point to listening to a poorly-pressed and subsequently warped record on a low-quality phonograph. My soundtrack for running the gauntlet around the bottom of the lake was full of wow and flutter and distortion, pops and crackles and hiss. Really quite intolerable.
At least the gauntlet itself wasn’t bad. For those who’ve not had the misfortune of travelling the confluence of highways that converge and coalesce near Gary, Indiana, just south of the Lake Michigan shoreline, consider yourself blessed. A massive amount of traffic, much of it trucks, funnels through a sixty mile stretch which seems to always be under construction, yet is always in terrible condition. Despite the desperate need for volume, multiple lanes are invariably closed (often for no apparent reason). It’s the single worst part of the trip between my house and my dad’s place in Colorado, and I’ve been known to take 100-mile detours to avoid it.
I’d stopped in Michigan City prior to running the gauntlet. I didn’t really need gas at that point, but unless I topped up there I’d be obliged to hunt for fuel somewhere in the Chicagoland mess. Stopping just before the gauntlet also provides an opportunity rest and freshen up a bit, all the better to deal with the rolling disaster ahead. I also check traffic and if the gauntlet is red I’ll bypass it by routes such as US-12 which might take longer, but at least keep me moving.
But this day the lines were all green, and indeed most of the time traffic did move fast -- sometimes a lot faster than it should have been given the construction zones and generally constrained arteries. There was inevitably a slowdown at one point; but I never had to come to complete stop, though I was in serious Slow Race mode for a short stretch due to the inexplicable activities of some flasherized vehicle.
Of course, I did have to come to a complete stop at the accursed tollbooth, something else I’ve been known to drive miles out of my way to avoid.
By now the temperature was in the mid-80s, far warmer than is my preference for riding weather but dead-on to the forecast I’d been watching for the past couple days. At the next gas stop, in Geneseo, Illinois, I spent a fair amount of time peeled down to my shorts and t-shirt, stretched out in a shady patch of grass, watching a pair of wind turbines spin in the steady southerly crosswind.
I checked the weather ahead – nothing to see. I checked the traffic ahead: glad I zoomed in to see the slowdown on I-80, which was fortunately bypassable by taking I-280 around Davenport. I made sure all my vents were wide open and got back on the road.
The rest of the day wasn’t notable, aside from the continued plastering of bug splats that I would normally expect to be reduced this time of year. Today’s ride across the plain looked like summer (there wasn’t any color to speak of), felt like summer, had all the bugs of summer…but didn’t really smell like summer. The new normal, I suspect, though I also suspect it won't be long until it's the new normal for November, too.
I rode a bit farther into the twilight than I normally would (or should), just because the temperature finally dropped and it was nice to no longer be staring into the setting sun.
And there was also the spectacular lightning show inside that gigantic thunderstorm off to the north.
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