I would be willing to bet that most of you reading this either have speakers on your dresser, or would like to get some soon.  I would also bet that the majority of you grew up without some sort of portable personalized music player (i.e. walk-mans, hand held cd-players, iPods.)

The way I see it, baby boomers get a kick out of playing music on their rides because for them, it is a special added bonus to an already exhilarating event. Sort of like buying ice cream served in a small plastic hat at baseball games.

However, as a generation Y rider, personalized music players (i.e. iPods) are such a constant through out my day, that time spent on my motorcycle is time spent detaching from the rest of the world, and that means music too.  

What ever happened to riding down a country road hearing nothing but the rush of wind and the crack of your pipes? Do we always have to have a soundtrack playing in every fascist of our lives?  

Here is my question to you:  are speakers on baggers a fad?  will they die out as the Generation Y takes over the reigns of the cruiser/dresser world? Will motorcycling ever return to being that beautiful time spent in relative "solitude"? Or am I just crazy to  image a world where Gen Y riders cruise without their iPods infiltrating the last great escape.  

I don't ride with my tunes on that much. Most of the time I like to think with out interruptions and I seem to do my best thinking while riding. On the occasions when I do listen to the radio it is usually while riding under 50mph when the wind noise is much lower. I do wish there was a plug-in to the radio for some ear phones; I might listen to the radio more.  

When I bought my FLHTC, I seriously considered just getting a standard since I really didn't want the tunes and the two extra gauges so bad that I was willing to pay huge $$s for them.  Well, as it worked out, I got the classic for the same price I would have paid for the standard and now I have a great background music and NPR source to listen to while waxing, wrenching, sweeping, and all those other garage activities.  

I listen to music occasionally on long rides but I'm a firm believer in wearing earplugs while riding so I just wear the plug-type headphones and use the ipod.  The earplugs shut out the heavy wind noise saving the ears and actually make hearing traffic and other necessary stuff a bit easier.  

but doesn't anybody feel distracted while riding with tunes on, especially coming from the earbud variety?  

I personally cant ride with anything plugging my ears, whether it be in-ear headphones pumping out tunes or plugs shutting everything out.

This is why I love the option of having the stereo on the bike at all times. If I want to hear the pipes, I just turn the sounds off. As far as being a fad? there has been stereos on H-D touring bikes for quite some time, so it's not a new thing by any means.  

Perhaps fad wasn't the right word choice.  What i'm tryin to say is, blasting tunes from speakers (especially those god-awful saddle-lid type) feels like taking it one step closer to heated seats, cup holders and moon roofs (which, if that is the case, why don't we all just saddle up on some 89 goldwings?!)

Does anybody out there still believe in the sanctity of riding to the tunes of your own thoughts?  

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I don't know about you, but for me, rolling on a 7 to 8 hour road trip with my tunes cranking, checking out the country side and me the only one on the road?....Doesn't get any better than that.  

Hmmmm...the sanctity of my own thoughts.  I like that.  Thanks, LongHairedEagle.  I regularly take a 225 mile trip through the desert over to my folks' house and often I never turn on the tunes.  There's nothing "hi-fi" about fairing mounted speakers and when competing with the wind at 70-80, I don't think it's a nice sound.  HOwever, now and then I slide in a CD and listen to some music.  Saw another rider on what looked like an 07 or 08 SG a few days back and he'd removed the stock stereo unit and replaced it with one of those what has an extended screen for watching dvd's or for nav functions or whatever.  I suppose he liked it but I thought it was a bit over the top.  I love gadbgets, but I guess we all  have limits.  

I have a detachable stereo fairing on my RK. I can have it on and listen to tunes if I want to, I can turn the stereo off, or I can take the whole thing off and roll out. That's why I'm loving my RK so much, I can do anything with it and I'm never stuck with the same bike from day-to-day.  

LongHairedEagle-I am on my 8th Harley, and my 2nd Roadking which is an 01.  Started riding when I was 15 and have never had a radio, and still don't.  I am a baby boomer and love the tunes, however nothing sounds like music as much as my pipes.  Some people say, oh those noisy bikers, and I say, It is not noise, it is music, a crotch rocket is noise.  I have done a lot of cross country cruising and sometimes if I remember, I will put in foam ear plugs.  On long distance rides, they cut out the wind noise in your ears and they cut out all the valve train noise that harleys make (and they do make a lot of racket).  The first time I took them out of my ears I was going down an off ramp, and the valve train noise was so loud to me, I thought I ran my bike out of oil and blew the motor and it was 100 degrees out a couple hundred miles out of Sturgis, SD.  It took my head a while to get used to the bike sounds again.

With the ears plugged the pipes are all you can hear and it is sweeeeet!!  

Hello,

My 2 cents worth...

I have an 09 FLHX. I bout the Hawg Wired DCS/SX System. I mean it ROCKS!! My buddy has the 110" kit on his 06 deuce, and he is quite jealous of my tunes. I recently went for a long rip through your [I am Canadian] Western states, and the head unit was acting up. I ended up riding in the "cooler" times with the fairing temp below 60 F and the stereo worked fine. As the heat of Death Valley, or the Mojave warmed the fairing, the temperature in the fairing caused the head unit to quit outputting audio.
I totally missed the radio for the first bit [well the GPS - Zumo 450 MP3s] but I got used to tunes in the morning, and evening. I mean the exhaust note is awesome, but on a 6-7 hour day, the tunes break up and ENHANCE the ride.
So I guess it is personal preference. The Hawg Wired DCS/SX is so freaking plug and play it is weird. Three Connections, a Speaker swap, and your tunes are taken to the next level.
With my half helmet, you don't go past 50% on the volume. With the Multitec, you go to about 75% for similar audio. I prefer MP3 to XM or radio, so long as you have a good bunch of songs, and you get some variety.
The GPS is pretty cool, and has helped during low fuel, tight sphincter moments when the question "where the hell is the next gas station??" occurs.
I'm telling you it rocks.

But I ONLY have the Screamin' Eagle Street Performance Mufflers, so is it Loud?? I dunno.

But now the bikes head unit is in the hands of Iron Cross Audio, as the temperature cutout was getting worse, and longer. They apparently fix and remedy the issues associated with the Harmon Kardon head-units. At the end, the unit would output no audio at all, and a direct connection from the Zumo to the amp would work fine... But a replacement under warranty would eventually fail, so the Iron Cross boys are supposed to fix it up, and handle the vibration better.

Anyhow, the stereo rocks, I thought about the bag lids from loud lids, but why? The fairing upgrade worked really well.

So consider that if you want a little jam from your stock stereo.

+1 For the tunes.

H  

I JUST CAN'T RIDE WITHOUT MUSIC ANYMORE....I HAVE A SOFTAIL THAT I HAVEN'T ROAD BUT A FEW TIMES SINCE RIDING WITH MUSIC BUT NEVER WITH EAR BUDS IN MY EARS. TO ME IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT JUST TURN IT OFF BUT YOU CAN'T BEAT HAVING IT THERE WHEN YOU WANT IT, ESPECIALLY ON THOSE LONG RIDES....JUST MY $.02  

I gotta have my tunes!  There are times when I don't want them but I like having the option. I am one of those guys that also believes in not being a nuisance to others, I don't crank it up in residential neighborhoods or if I am in a campground/state park type area. I have loud pipes, but I try to keep the roar to a minimum until I'm outta earshot of others.  

I'm one of thoes that grew up without tunes on the bike. When I'm on the RG I really like the ability to crank it up and ride. I find that now that I have the music I miss it on my other bike, a '94 FLSTC. Just bought a MA2 system from Metrix and I'll let everyone know how that works out.