The Slip

In preparation for the 80-mile-out-and-back ride that never happened I purchased a new item for my bike. Actually my helmet.

The item I purchased: The Slip by Slipstreamz

As you can see, The Slip fits over the ear and is supposed to reduce wind noise. The Slip also has a pocket, or groove, or something, on the inside that allows you use your iPod ear buds as you ride.  The ear buds are held outside the ear canal allowing you to hear traffic.

I’m not interested in starting a debate on just how wise it is to listen to an iPod while biking.  We’ll leave that to another blog in another part of the Internet. (I will say, however, that I’m just a little embarrassed to be seen with ear buds in and do all I can to hide my ear bud cord.)

Each day I’ve used The Slip it’s been pretty windy out, so there’s still been plenty of wind noise. I’m certain the noise is reduced however; for the first time ever I heard my cell phone when it went off and I was pedaling. There have been times I’ve been out riding, stopped, checked the phone, noticed I had a couple of calls and had wondered how I’d missed them as it hadn’t seemed all that noisy on the bike.

I’d swear, too, that I can hear cars better when they come up behind me. The first couple of times I was passed I was surprised at how much louder the cars had sounded and thought it might have been related more to the road surface.  I now think it has more to do with the wind-noise reduction. (More research needs to be done on this before I swing solidly either way.)

By the way, I noticed the louder traffic during an outing in which I wasn’t using ear buds.

However, with ear buds in I had no trouble hearing traffic noises.  Nothing passed me that I hadn’t heard coming well in advance. And I could hear just as well regardless of whether I was listening to Foghat or a Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me podcast.

Installation of The Slip was easy enough, so I won’t go into any great details.

I used The Slip for the 25 miles out to Mechanicsburg and wasn’t terribly impressed. I thought I might be having less-than-spectacular results as my chin strap wasn’t snug.  When I got to Mechanicsburg I tightened the chin strap which served to draw The Slip in closer to my ears; it made a big difference in how The Slip performed.

You’ll notice the guy above has an almost Link-from-the-Mod-Squad cool about him.

This is my impression:

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