Motorcycle radio
 

Hello all
I would like to fit a radio to my 1994 BMW R 80RT so that I can listen to the radio while I am riding. I have an Autocom fitted into the tail, with a lead up to an MP3 player in the cockpit. Rider and passenger both have speakers in their helmets, so we can talk to each other and also listen to music on the MP3.
I would also like to listen to the radio. Any ideas?
Thanks.
Tony

Hi Tony,
A few years ago I bought an 1100RT which happened to have a radio and cassette player. I only turned it on once and I hated it. It was awful. It ruined the pleasure of riding the bike. It was like trying to read when someone else in the room is watching TV or trying to talk to you. I took it out and used the space in the fairing for a pump and spare cables and tools.

Riding your bike is not like driving a car. I do all my travelling with a passenger and we don't have an intercom either. Probably for the same reason. You already have an intercom so you might like a radio too. It just didn't work for me.

Hi Kilver,

I used to have an R1200RT and really enjoyed being able to listen to the radio, whilst on the longer rides.

Nowadays I ride an XT225 Serow but still do the same mileages and would like to listen to the radio again, especially when outside of the UK.

So has anyone found a small portable radio (DAB or not) that works well on their bike or in their pocket?

When I had my C1, I rigged up a cheap amp/speaker system from Hein Gericke and played a Sony SRF-M97 small radio through it, which worked well but it's not got the power to run helmet speakers. As the radio is only the size of a cigarette lighter, I don't mind it sitting in my pocket.

Any idea's on radio whilst you ride would be fabulous.

Regards

Reggie

This has to be one of the best replies that echo my own sentiments about radio/ipod etc on bikes, I tried my ipod once whilst travelling in France but stopped after only a few miles to dump the lot into the tankbag.
You might as well drive a car if you want music, with the added bonus of rolling cigarettes, hair combing and other pastimes car drivers do.
doh

I have a mp3 player that has a FM radio in it with a booster in line from the player to the speakers in the helmet. Works just not well and use it as much as the throttle lock I have and for the same roads. Loooong flat straight boring roads we have in the USA there good any thing fun or nice to look at there of little use.
Other than a new mp3 player I think there are some real radios that can be add to your system. But that will need an antena add to the bike a place to put the thing. Most of the people that go threw all that have a HD or a goldwing and have plenty of power to drive that system. There not as cheap and well most use speakers so every one hears them.
Problem is the small mp3 player or other small radios will not get the station for long on a road trip. The bigger radio will but have to power that and gust one more brick you are dragging around with you.
Some of the new GPS have a radio in them I think.

There is a option that I have used a long time ago and that is to use a small battery powered radio I got a thrift store a boom box it was called. It used the bikes battery to run it as it had a built in DC plug and a headphone jack. I had a top box it sat in and used a old car antena rewired to the radio all held together with hot glue and tape. Did not look nice but it did work.

Hello!

Well, my experience is different.

I ride a H-D Electra Glide, year 1998, so it has a cassette player with music coming out from 4 speakers.
Some years before buying the bike I said to myself "a radio while riding? What a bul--hit!", but after one hour of riding with radio on I realized that road trips can be experienced with another kind of pleasure.

I appreciate my radio especially when riding on a highway, because I can make you sure that listening to music when you are on a road stretch which is hundreds of miles long with nothing to see for hours is helpful in order to relieve the boredom.

Last year I downloaded from Youtube some tunes of Anatolian instrumental music and recorded them on a tape just for when I would have crossed Turkey: I make sure that I really enjoyed riding south-east Turkey with that music on, it matched perfectly the wonderful landscape I was crossing.

And it's very simple: you wanna listen to music? You turn the radio on.
You have enough of it? You turn it off.

And all of this comes to a person that never listens to music while driving his car: when I'm on 4 wheels, I like to relax and concentrate on my thoughts (of course I do it when I'm alone, cuz my girlfriend would never live without music while driving).

The only problem comes from different tastes between me and her: she likes love songs (either Italian or International), whereas I love rock music (Metallica, AC-DC, Nirvana, Rammstein, Bruce Springsteen...) so in the moments where se has her part, I would like to be somewhere else, believe me.
Just imagine to arrive to a biker party with Beyonce or Mariah Carey singing from the speakers of your motorcycle... doh

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